All appears not to be smooth between President
Muhammadu Buhari and his Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo as it relates to
national security matters.
President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday met
behind closed doors with some security chiefs to marshal the country’s plans
that will be presented at a meeting of the Lake Chad Basin Commission in Abuja
on Thursday. Vice President Osinbajo was conspicuously absent at this meeting.
National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki
(retd.); Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Defence, Ismail Aliyu; Chief of
Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh; and Chief of Naval Staff, Vice
Admiral Usman Jibrin attended the meeting held inside the Defence House in
Abuja.
According to a state house correspondent who
spoke to BREAKING TIMES
on Wednesday, this is the second time Vice President
Osinbajo would be “denied access” into a strategic security briefing with the
President. “Normally, the Vice President should be part of these inaugural
security briefings because he is the second in command and will deputise for
the President in his absence. His absence two times in a row is not healthy at
this early stage of their working relationship. We don’t actually know what is
going on”, the source said.
Last week Wednesday, June 3r, 2015, The Trent
reported exclusively that Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo was ‘locked out’ of
President Muhammadu Buhari’s meeting with the National Security Adviser on the
orders of President Buhari. According to reports, Vice-President Osinbajo was
refused ‘security clearance’ to attend the meeting as a result of security
concerns by the Commander-in-Chief allegedly over what he described as a “very
sensitive meeting.”
Permanent Secretary at Nigeria’s Ministry of
Defence, Ismail Aliyu briefed State House correspondents at the end of today’s
meeting, which lasted less more than two hours.
He said they discussed issues relating to the
operationalisation of the Multinational Joint Task Force and the contributions
of each member state.
He said the President, at the meeting, reiterated
his desire to end insurgency in the country and the region in shortest possible
time.
Aliyu said, “We came to brief Mr. President on
the meeting of the Lake Chad Basin Commission.
President Buhari appears not to be the only
one undermining the office of the Vice President. Newly elected Senate
President, Bukola Saraki shunned a truce meeting called on Monday by the
leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Senator Saraki boycotted the
meeting after reportedly telling party leaders that as a former governor he
could not attend a meeting summoned by a ‘mere commissioner’, referring to
Professor Yemi Osinbajo, whose previous public office was as Commissioner of
Justice
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