President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered the removal of all military checkpoints set up in the wake of Boko Haram activities across the country.
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Defence, Aliyu Ismaila, disclosed this on Monday shortly after the president met with service chiefs at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Ismaila said the meeting had further encouraged the security chiefs to do more in the war against insurgency because of the leadership being provided by the President who is a retired military officer.
“The President had instructed the Chief of Defence Staff to get the Chief of Army Staff and Inspector-General of Police to remove all the military men along the roads across the country,” he said.
Ismaila said the meeting had further encouraged the security chiefs to do more in the war against insurgency because of the leadership being provided by the President who is a retired military officer.
Part of what the president discussed with them at the meeting included the movement of the command centre to the North-East.
Ismaila said “I also want to assure Nigerians that with what we have come out with from this meeting, we are very enthusiastic that the issue of Boko Haram will soon be over.
” He has given us hope that we will see peace and security in the very near future,” he added.
Ismaila said he was sure there would be a difference in the insurgency war with the common front that has been formed by Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Benin and Niger.
He said the issue of sacking of service chiefs did not come up during the meeting.
On the absence of heads of some security agencies at the meeting, Ismaila said, “This is not a national security meeting, this is a briefing by the Ministry of Defence on the operationalisation of the Multi-National Joint Task Force and the relocation of the command control centre to the North-East, so it is something restricted to the ministry of Defence.”
Motorists had been facing harrowing experience on the Abuja-Keffi Road and some other roads following the military checkpoints mounted at strategic spots.
