The National Security Adviser, Major General Babagana Monguno (retd.), on Tuesday said the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), has again expressed his dissatisfaction over the security situation in the country.
He said the President has therefore ordered “an immediate re-engineering of the entire security apparatus.”
Monguno disclosed this while briefing State House correspondents of the outcome of a meeting of the National Security Council presided over by the President.
The meeting, which was attended by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo; heads of the nation’s security agencies and relevant ministers, was held a day after the Nigeria Governors Forum decried what it described as the nation’s worsening security situation.
The state governors who condemned the recent attack on the convoy of their Borno State colleague, Babagan Zulum, had promised to meet separately with Buhari and the service chiefs on the matter.
But Monguno told reporters that the President, at the meeting, reaffirmed his earlier message to the security chiefs that their best is not enough.
He said the re-engineering that Buhari ordered would be done in a short time without giving details of what to expect.
The NSA said, “What he (the President) said today (Tuesday) was virtually a reaffirmation of what he said the first time.
“Yes, Mr President said ‘you are doing your best, as far as I am concerned, but there’s still a lot more to be done. I am more concerned about the promise we made to the larger Nigerian society and I am ordering an immediate re-engineering of the entire security apparatus.’
“This is something that I believe will be done in a very short time, but I just want us to keep hope alive.
“I know how everybody feels, I know how Nigerians feel, definitely the President is not oblivious of the fact that securing the nation is a primary responsibility of government and I believe in his sincerity, but again, since he is not an octopus, since he’s not a spirit, if he delegates to people, then the onus is on them to actually fulfil the legitimate expectations of the larger Nigerian society.”
He said after his briefing on the two issues, the President also directed that security agencies should rejig their strategies both in terms of operations and intelligence.
“We must bear in mind that we owe a duty to the people that elected this government and at the end of the day, without securing the nation all other things such as revamping the economy and fighting corruption cannot be addressed,” he said.
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