Governor Nyesom Wik of Rivers State, on Sunday, said the former military Service Chiefs failed to tackle the mounting insecurity in the country because they were deeply involved in politics.
Following years outcry for the removal of the service chiefs, President Muhammadu Buhari, last week, sacked the four Service Chiefs, including the Chief of Defence Staff, General Abayomi Olonisakin; Chief of Army Staff, Lt-Gen. Tukur Buratai; Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Ibok Ekwe Ibas and Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar.
The sacked service chiefs were replaced with Major General LEO Irabor as Chief of Defence Staff; Major-General I. Attahiru, Chief of Army Staff; Rear Admiral A.Z Gambo, Chief of Naval Staff; and Air-Vice Marshal I.O Amao, Chief of Air Staff.
Wike, who spoke on Channels Television programme ‘Sunday Politics’, said when national security is politicised as was done by the former Service Chiefs, nothing will be achieved.
“As I said, if you do the right thing, I will commend you. If you don’t do the right thing, I will criticise you.
“Mr President has done what every Nigerian have expected that he should have done. We are happy with what he has done but having done it, what is the next step?”
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“The next step is, you that have been appointed, what is your agenda? What are your plans to make sure that security architecture is improved?”
“I have commended Mr President for listening to Nigerians. Whether anybody likes it or not, he did and we should commend him for that even though it came late”
“Now, those that he appointed, what is expected of them? Very, very serious”.
“They must understand that the challenges are enormous and so they have a lot of work to do. They should not involve themselves in politics.
“Part of the problems we had with the former service chiefs was that they were involved in politics instead of concentrating on the security of the nation.
‘They were very much involved in politics. Nobody can deny that fact. The moment you politicise security, then you are bound to have problems,” Wike said.
