Details have emerged on the meeting President Muhammadu Buhari held on Tuesday with service chiefs and the Inspector-General of Police at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Military sources have revealed that Buhari told security chiefs to adopt certain security measures in the South-East and the South-South geopolitical zones of the country.
According to the sources, what Buhari ordered the service chiefs and IGP to do were no “extraordinary measures” but regular operational procedures to check the growing violence.
“The police and military have been recording casualties in the South-East during raids and gun battles with the criminals disturbing the region. Therefore, the focus would shift more to air power in the coming weeks. Combat helicopters and other aircraft would be deployed to conduct massive raids on the hideouts from the air. It does not matter whether the hideouts are for the Indigenous People of Biafra or its armed outfit, what the military is looking for are criminals,” the source told SaharaReporters.
“There is also the likelihood of arrest of more traditional rulers, community heads and chiefs by the security agencies to extract key information. The army and police believe that the traditional and community intelligence will be important to suppress the IPOB (Indigenous People of Biafra) and ESN (Eastern Security Network) uprising. The South-East states have to warn their traditional rulers against conniving with the agitators. You see how many traditional rulers were arrested, sanctioned, detained and dethroned in the North-West for conniving with bandits. The same table is turning to the South-East and South-South regions,” another security source revealed.
Recall that while speaking to State House Correspondents after a security meeting on Tuesday, acting Inspector-General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba, had said Buhari approved new security measures for the South-south and South-East regions.
He added that this was one of the outcomes of the series of security meetings held in the last eleven days and concluded on Tuesday in the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Also speaking with reporters, the National Security Adviser (NSA), Major General Babagana Monguno (rtd), said the President has approved a memo on the control of drugs,
Monguno noted that drugs are enablers of insecurity, adding that they must be controlled.
The NSA said the meeting stressed the need to address the security challenges in the country particularly those that have arisen in the last few months.