Boko Haram: Defence Chief visits Maiduguri, holds strategy meeting with theatre commander

The Chief of Defence Staff, Gabriel Olonisakin, is on an undisclosed visit to Maiduguri, the Borno state capital.

The defence chief was not accompanied by any of the service chiefs.

Mr. Olonisakin, a general, arrived Maiduguri International airport at 11 a.m. where he was received by the theatre commander, Operation Lafiya Dole, Attahiru Ibrahim.

The military boss was accompanied by some key members of staff of the defence headquarters.

From the airport, the defence chief was driven to the headquarters of the command and control centre where the theatre commander, a major general, is expected to brief him about the ongoing counterinsurgency operations.

At the centre, Mr. Attahiru told journalists that his boss was on ”an operational visit.”

“The Chief of Defence Staff, General Gabriel Olonisakin is here on an operational visit ànd we are to give him an update on the state of our operation; this includes our successes and the areas where we have challenges so that he can offer us his assistance”, the general said.

Journalists were asked to leave the operational briefing room as the military chief settled to be briefed by the theatre commander.

The spokesman at the theatre command, Onyema Nwachukwu, said there would be no press briefing at the end of the visit.

Mr. Nwachukwu, a colonel said, this was “because the CDS’ is simply on an operational visit”.

President Muhammadu Buhari recently, in the wake of a deadly attack on worshippers that claimed over 50 lives in Mubi, Adamawa, directed the military to intensify its efforts at curtailing the rising attacks carried out by Boko Haram insurgents on soft targets.