President Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday said he sacked the service chiefs because of the unnecessary rivalry among security agencies in the country.
The president who spoke while commissioning the Air Force Comprehensive School in Yola, Adamawa State, said that he has over the years noted that the new chief of defence staff has been a good manager of resources.
Maintaining that there were unnecessary rivalry among security agencies in the country, the President also pointed out that security lapses contributed to the successful attacks carried out on five helicopters by the terrorists.
He warned the newly appointed service chiefs against embarking on unnecessary competition among themselves,urging them to work together and complement each other in the interest of the nation.
“We will work with them to make sure that we overcome these challenges. One of the reasons that made me to uplift the present chief of defence staff from the chief of air staff is that I noted very carefully in terms of managing resources, he tried.”
“And I believe that with him now taking charge as the chief of defence staff, working with other men that have been properly briefed about how they conduct their work, I know that the Nigerian armed forces will be a different armed forces.”
“I urge you to cooperate. Sometimes we use to hear some kind of mutual and individual competition among service chiefs and security personnel. But this time around, we will not tolerate any unnecessary competition that will bring retrogression to this country.”
“We charge you to work together because our country is exposed to cancer and I told the former chief of defence staff when I came back from meeting in France, that was the time they attacked our five helicopters and a journalist asked me, Mr. President is it not shameful? And I asked him, If you were me, how will you have felt? And I believed we will no longer experience that kind of situation. That happened because of some obvious lapses.”
“We will make sure we work with the national assembly, we will work with the service chiefs and other senior military personnel, we will work with our traditional rulers and governors and senior citizens to see that we move our country to next level,” the president assured.
Earlier, Chief of Defence Staff, Alex Badeh, said that the fight against insurgency is surmountable as he urged security agencies to remain focused, pledging his loyalty to defend the nation in line with the provisions of the Constitution of Nigeria.
According to him, the Air Force Comprehensive School project, which he said was the brainchild of the Air Force, was carried out on five hectares of land within a period of seven months through direct labour.
The President later met with Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leaders and party men in the state, where they pledged their support for him towards 2015 election.
Among the leaders were Deputy Governor of Adamawa State, James Ngiliri and Prof. Jubril Aminu who took turn to thank President Jonathan for all the appointments that have come to the state.
They still pleaded four more attention to the state as they noted that it is trailing behind states like Gombe and Taraba in terms of some infrastructure.
The president was presented with two members of the House of Representatives, who announced their defection from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the PDP.
The President, who noted that he was instrumental to the success of Governor Nyako, who is now with the APC, during his election in 2011, said that he was overwhelmed by the turn out of party men in the state.
He also suggested conduct of zonal rallies to be carried out before aspirants and candidates start emerging in order to reposition the party.
“We need to have zonal rallies before election. Before INEC open doors for people to start campaigns for offices, let us have neutral rallies now that we don’t have aspirants and candidates. We will have zonal rallies, and we will encourage states to also have state rallies then we will also have the national convention. We need to do that to re-energize our party” he said