Chukwudi Nweje

National Chairman of the 2014 Nigeria Movement, Maj. Gen. Henry Ayoola (retd), has said the sacking of the country’s security chiefs as being demanded by Nigerians would not solve the security challenges facing the country.

Ayoola stated this, yesterday, when he led members of the group on a visit  to The Sun Publishing Limited office in Ikeja.

He said aside funding and equipping the military, the Federal Government required political will to surmount the current security challenges facing the country..

“The issue of security goes beyond sacking the service chiefs. Under our constitution, the president is the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. No service chief can do anything beyond the instructions he was given by the Commander-in-Chief. No doubt, the Army and police can be better funded and equipped, but if there is the political will these issues of insecurity will be resolved,” he said. The 2014 Nigeria Movement is a proactive political platform that aims at identifying, engaging and resolving the challenges facing the birth of New Nigeria.

The group was received by the Editor, Daily Sun, Mr. Iheanacho Nwosu; Editor Sunday Sun, Mr. Chidi Nnadi; Editor, Special Projects, Mr. Tony Edeh and Business Development Manager, Nkiru Obeki.

Related News

Ayoola backed ongoing efforts by the National Assembly at amending the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and called on stakeholders to work together towards building a great country.

“Together we can pitch our tent on the side of posterity to rescue, recover and reposition Nigeria to combat the challenges that are threatening our collective survival,” he said.  He said part of the problem facing the country is that no Nigerian leader had made a deliberate effort towards bridging the multi-ethnic and multi-religious gaps in the country.

“The fundamental problem of the nation is that no leader has ever taken the deliberate step to build a nation out of this multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-religious country. It is possible to have a nation-state with a set of shared core values, a set of values that the man in Sokoto,  Kaduna, Lagos, Calabar or Ibadan can relate with. We may not agree on everything, but we can agree on a set of what we will jealously guard and fight for. Worldwide, we have multi-cultural countries, but they have shared values, from there you can begin to talk about what you call a constitution. The United States of America is an example.”

To move Nigeria forward, he said, required a foundation built on four pillars of restructuring, a new order of leadership, cooperative diversity and good governance.

“Good governance is about the need to make all the structures and infrastructures of the state work productively and optimally and through the process urgently lift our people out of the morass of oppressive insecurity, poverty and illiteracy by the activation and entrenchment of enlightenment, empowerment and encouragement. The focus must completely be on making the country work and function well in all areas of the society,” he said.