Service chiefs should be held to account - Falana

The sack of the Service Chiefs was long overdue, rights activist-lawyer Femi Falana (SAN) said yesterday.

He said: “They abandoned professionalism for politics and exposed the armed forces to unprecedented ridicule and odium. The bulk of the over N4 trillion earmarked for defence in the last five years was diverted. Hence the armed forces were unable to confront the ragtag army of the satanic Boko Haram sect.  

Falana praised Buhari for sacking the Service Chiefs and the NSA. In his view, the President should go further to make the officers account for “the huge funds collected under the pretext of prosecuting the war on terror."

“We call on the new Service Chiefs to reorganise and motivate the highly demoralised troops, set aside the questionable verdicts of courts martial and stop the ongoing diversionary trials of officers and troops who were not equipped to fight the terrorists,” Falana said. 

To a former Governor of Kaduna State, Alhaji Balarabe Musa, the change was normal.

But he was quick to advise the new Service Chiefs to support Buhari to address the insurgency, which has crippled the Northeast. 

He said: “This change is normal. Every new regime wants to effect change in line with its agenda. I think it is not a controversial thing, provided it is within the powers of the president."

“Let the new Service Chiefs give full support to the President so that the insurgency can be solved.”

A former Military Governor in one of the North-central states, who preferred not to be named, said: “I don’t want to talk now to avoid being misunderstood. I am watching the nature of change being planned by the President.”