President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday 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 to State House correspondents after a meeting Buhari had with service chiefs at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
“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.
He said the service chiefs left the meeting happier because the President updated and enriched their strategic plans.
He added that the meeting also discussed the movement of the command centre to the North-East.
He said they briefed the President on how far they had gone and they were given some additional assignments.
He however assured Nigerians that the centre would soon take off.
“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.
“We have all strategised and we are coming out with one type of strategy that we are going to address the Boko Haram with, unlike before,” he added.
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.
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