Metele base attack: COAS Annual Conference moves to Maiduguri

President Muhammadu Buhari’s visit to Edo State on Tuesday may have been canceled as the Chief of Army Staff Annual Conference, initially billed to hold in Benin City has been shifted to Maiduguri, Borno State.

President Buhari’s aide on New Media, Alhaji Bashir Ahmad, confirmed this development on his Twitter handle on Sunday evening.

He said: “President Muhammadu Buhari is expected to declare the COAS Annual Conference on November 28, 2018 at the Conference Hall CGH in Maiduguri, Borno state.

“The conference was earlier scheduled to take place from 26 -28 November 2018 in Benin, Edo state.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that arrangements had been completed by Edo State Government to host President Buhari on November 27 where he was billed to inaugurate the Edo-Azura Power Plant and grace the Chief of Army Staff Annual Conference.

NAN gathered that the shifting of the Chief of Army Staff Annual Conference from Benin City to Maiduguri might not be unconnected with the killing of Nigerian soldiers at Metele, a remote village bordering Nigeria and Chad.

NAN learned that President Buhari would use the opportunity of the COAS conference to address the Nigerian soldiers at the battlefields to further boost their morale.

It would be recalled that President Buhari had on Sunday presided over a meeting of security chiefs at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, as part of the ongoing efforts to engage military and intelligence community towards addressing Boko Haram insurgency.

In a tweet in Abuja on Sunday, the President’s aide on New Media, Bashir Ahmad, said all the service chiefs, the Inspector-General of Police, Idris Ibrahim and the Director-General of the Department of State Service, Yusuf Bichi were part of the meeting.

“All the Service Chiefs, I-G of Police and DG of DSS were at the State House this morning. As President Buhari said on Saturday in the coming days, he will be engaging the Military and Intelligence Chiefs in extensive discussions on the next steps we shall be taking,’’ Ahmad said in the tweet.

President Buhari had pledged on Saturday to ensure that the loopholes, which led to the fatalities are blocked once and for all.