Nigeria: Roar over service chiefs

In February, readers might recall that on this page, I carried the speeches of some of our representatives in the National Assembly who spoke passionately on the scale of destruction going on in the North-East. Senator Ishaku Elisha Abbo (Adamawa north), Rep Usman Zanna (Kaga, Gubio, Magumeri constituency), and Rep Ahmadu Usman Jaha (Damboa, Gwoza, Chibok constituency), spoke eloquently at that time raising their voices in unison, asking the president to rejig the top commanders. Since then, the security situation had only gotten worse, not only in the North-East but in the adjacent North-West zone as well. The only safe highway into Maiduguri, which used to be through Damaturu can only be traversed now by the very brave as the Boko Haram terrorists could strike at any point. Maiduguri is now practically cut off from the rest of the country by road. In the North-West, a lot of the rural areas in Katsina, Zamfara and Sokoto are in flames as hundreds of bandits on motor bikes are rampaging, killing and maiming all over the place.