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| Service Chiefs - Credit: Daily Trust |
Preamble: If there is a critical discourse on the front burner currently in Nigeria, it is on unrelenting insecurity – pervasive kidnap for ransom and extortion, overwhelming banditry, resilient and resurging Boko Haram attacks on soft/hard targets, seeming helplessness of Nigerian security agencies, especially the military and deafening calls for the Service chiefs to voluntarily, honorably throw in the towel or be sacked. The secretary to the government of the federation (SGF), Mr. Boss Mustapha says ‘’you don’t just wake up and sack people like that, there are processes and I believe that, at the ‘opportune’ time, those processes will be followed. This suggests that the service chiefs who have served their tenures may not be replaced anytime soon. The aforesaid statement credited to the SGF and an Op-ed on Africa Briefing by a professional colleague – Mr. David Otto titled, ‘’Changing Nigeria’s military leadership at the height of Boko Haram/ISWAP attacks is a tactical suicide’’. Nigerians are being slaughtered, kidnapped in their numbers every day. According to the report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur Agnes Callamard after her 12-day mission to Nigeria, ''Nigeria is a pressure cooker of internal conflicts and generalised violence that must be addressed urgently...''. Someone please remind the commander-in-chief that the ‘opportune’ time to do the needful is now. There's a fierce urgency to act now!
