I am not ready to exit government a failure, Buhari tells security chiefs

Yusuf Bello/ President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday at a meeting with security chief’s vowed not to exit the government as a failure at the end of his second term in office in 2023.

The National Security Adviser (NSA), Major General Babagana Monguno, who conveyed the President’s pledge to reporters at the end of the meeting which lasted more than five hours, said the President made the his position clear to the security chiefs.

“The President was briefed, the President is quite happy that there’s been a tremendous success, especially with the advent of the new service chiefs and Inspector-General of Police,” Monguno said.

“And he’s also made it very clear that he’s not ready to exit government as a failure; he is not going to tolerate that.

“He’s made changes and he’s ready to make further changes if he is not satisfied. He is completely determined to ensure that there’s a turnaround in the fortunes in the theatre of operations.”

According to the NSA, the last National Security Council meeting held on June 8 and a lot has happened within the security domain since then till now.

He explained that the next meeting was scheduled to hold next week, but the President decided to draw it back for Thursday for what he described as obvious reasons.

Monguno hinted that the meeting briefed President Buhari on the current security situation in the country, especially on happenings from the last meeting till the latest one.

He stated that the discussions bordered mainly on issues arising from the successes recorded in the theatre of operations throughout the North East.

“It is evident that a lot of successes have been recorded,” said the NSA. “Large numbers of people are surrendering in the North East as a consequence of the relentless efforts of the Armed Forces, intelligence and security agencies.”

“We’ve never had such large numbers of people defecting from the other side back to the Nigerian side, mainly as a result of many issues within the theatre, issues of infighting among the various factions of the terrorist groups.

“But the new drive of the Armed Forces, the police, the intelligence agencies, there’s been greater cooperation, greater synergy, intelligence sharing, as well as our partners in the regional intelligence fusion unit,” he added.