The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, on Monday said that President Mohammad Buhari never ordered the dismantling of military checkpoints, contrary to the stories making the rounds.
Adesina in a conversation with newsmen in Abuja said that the President’s directive was that soldiers should be removed from checkpoints located in non-essential areas.
“Military checkpoints were never taken away in the first place. I was at that meeting where the President gave an instruction on what to do with the military checkpoints. He never said they should be dismantled.
“What he said was that they should remove soldiers from checkpoints in non-essential areas. The President gave an account in that meeting. He said one day before he became President, he was coming from Minna and shortly before entering Abuja, the many lanes on the road merged into one lane and there was a long traffic.
“He said when he eventually got to the point where the problem started, he saw one soldier who stood there and was just controlling traffic. He said he parked and introduced himself to the soldier and asked him if what he was doing was effective because he was just waving vehicles to pass.
“So, the President said if those manning the checkpoints had equipment to detect things, it is better. He said they should remove soldiers from non-essential checkpoints because the soldier that he saw was not better than a traffic warden.
“He said they should not reduce soldiers to traffic wardens when they can use them in some other places. Checkpoints were never dismantled,” the Presidential Spokesman said.
He said it would be wrong and unfair for anybody or group to insinuate that Buhari had not been concerned about the increasing cases of attacks by members of the Boko Haram sect in parts of the country.
According to him, the Buhari administration was determined to end the insurgency as soon as possible and that a lot was being done to achieve this.
He said the Monday’s change of the nation’s service chiefs and the NSA by the President was also part of the strategies aimed at tackling the sect.
He said, “A lot is being done by this administration to end terrorism in affected parts of the country.
“This rejig of the security apparatus is not unconnected because fresh impetus and energy will be needed to tackle insurgency.
“So, nobody can say this government is not concerned about the spate of bombings and killings. Nobody can say that this government is not determined to end insurgency.”
Adesina said the President had spent the better part of his first two weeks in office working hard to find a solution to the problem.
Good talk Adesina!