President Muhammadu Buhari, on Monday, held a ‘special consultation’ with service chiefs of the nation’s armed forces and the Inspector General of Police, IGP Mohammed Adamu.
Unlike previous meetings with security chiefs by the president, the National Security Adviser, Maj.-Gen. Babagana Monguno (rtd), was absent.
Those at the meeting were the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Gen. Gabriel Abayomi Olonisakin; the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt.–Gen Tukur Yusuf Buratai; Chief of the Naval Staff (CNS), Vice Admiral Ibok Ekwe Ibas Chief of Air Staff (CAS), Air Marshall Sadique Abubakar.
Monguno’s absence at the meeting had left not a few wondering whether he was beginning to be played out in the schemes of things, but it had been gathered that Monguno did not attend the meeting because he had travelled out of the country to represent President Buhari at Munich Security Summit.
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Recall that the the NSA, who returned to the country same Monday had, in a leaked memo, reportedly alleged that undue interference by the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari, on matters of national security, had slowed down meaningful gains that President Buhari had sought to achieve especially in the fight against insurgency.
In the leaked memo to the service chiefs, which was published by an online platform, Premium Times, Monguno directed them (service chiefs) to desist from taking further directives from Kyari.
Monguno had also alleged in the memo that Kyari’s directives to service chiefs were sometimes issued without the knowledge or approval of the president; a practice, he further claimed, had added to the government’s failure to contain insecurity.
After monday’s meeting, the service chiefs were observed passed through the Office of the Chief of Staff to the President on their way out, while the Chief of Army Staff was the last person sighted leaving at about 3.55 pm.
