Senate directs army chief to relocate to Maiduguri

The Senate yesterday ordered the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Kenneth Minimah, to immediately relocate his office to Maiduguri following the murder of over 40 secondary students on Tuesday in Yobe state in order to ensure that the war against terrorists “is effectively carried out.”

The directive was reached sequel to a resolution passed to that effect by its Committee on Defence and Army.
Details of the committee’s resolutions on the directive to the Army Chief were contained in a two-page statement issued in Abuja.

The Committee also directed the Nigerian Army under Minimah to re-strategise on possible new ways of curbing boko Haram excesses in Yobe, Borno and Adamawa States by mobilising all available military resources in fighting the insurgents.
The committee, which gave express approval to the 2014 budget of the Nigerian Army, told the Army Chief that what was of utmost priority to it now was quelling of the killing spree going on in the North-east through   Boko Haram insurgency and not the budget details, since, according to it, “no one goes to the town square to dance when there is fire in his house.”

Responding to the committee,s directive, the Army Chief assured the lawmakers that the insurgents in the North-east would be eliminated in a matter of time, but added that required funds should be appropriated for their responsibilities to be effectively carried out.
Meanwhile, the Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba, has described the Tuesday Yobe killings of over 40 students as “crossing the border of decency.”
In a statement, he said the killings showed that the sect had planned to plunge “Nigeria into a bleak and blank future.”

The statement said: “It is obvious that we are now dealing with a bunch of animals to whom human life is now totally meaningless and worthless because when you attack students, you are attacking the foundation of the country’s future.
“So, this attack, to me, is to plunge the nation into a bleak and blank future. There would be need for us to modify our security strategy to include hot pursuit; this is permissible in international law if your neighbour is not taking concrete steps to halt these insurgents as it’s now clear that they hit us from there and go back there to hide.”