Two days after scrapping the offices of Chief of Staff and Deputy Chief of Staff in the Presidency, President Umaru Musa Yar�Adua has appointed new service chiefs as he continues to make strategic changes in his government.
All but one of the service chiefs he inherited from the Obasanjo government have now been retired.
The major changes at the nation�s top military hierarchy were announced yesterday by the presidential spokesman, Mr. Olusegun Adeniyi, who said Air Marshal Paul Dike has been appointed as Chief of Defence Staff to replace General Andrew Azazi who is retiring after completing his years of service.
The President also approved the appointment of Major-General Abdulrahaman Bello Dambazau as Chief of Army Staff to replace Lt-General Luka Yusuf who is also retiring from service.
Until his new appointment, Dambazau was the General Officer Commanding the 2nd Division of the Nigerian Army in Ibadan.
Another change approved by the President is the appointment of Rear Admiral Ishaya Iko Ibrahim as Chief of Naval Staff in place of Vice Admiral Ganiyu Adekeye, who has also retired from active service.
Ibrahim was the Flag Officer Commanding the Naval Training Command, Lagos
The President gave the approval for the appointment of new service chiefs before travelling out to Saudi Arabia to perform the lesser Hajji. The change is with immediate effect.
The change has resulted in the postponement of the retreat of the service chiefs which had been scheduled for today.
According to Adeniyi, the president and the Minister of Defence, Alhaji Ahmed Yayale, have already met with the outgoing Chief of Defence Staff and services chiefs to thank them for their services to the nation.
Although the official announcement said the service chiefs retired, defence sources told THISDAY last night that the changes were made to strengthen the government of Yar�Adua which had had to cope with some perceived disunity between some of the service chiefs.
Said a source: �The changes had been on the cards for sometime now. Both the Chief of Naval Staff (Adekeye) and Chief of Defence Staff (Azazi) have overstayed their service years. They ought to have retired last December but the President allowed them to stay on because he wanted to take his time to find their replacements.�
The source also said Yusuf still had up till December 2008 to complete his record year, and there had been arguments over whether or not he should stay then but there were some �pressing issues� which the President had to address.
�Yusuf and Azazi are sworn enemies. They bicker all the time and this is known within the armed forces, especially within the Army. They hardly agree on any issue. So it was felt that if one should go, the other should too,� the source said.
However, an official of the defence ministry who spoke with THISDAY last night denied the insinuation, maintaining that the changes were routine.
�You cannot really of rivalry between Yusuf and Azazi,� he said. �One was in charge of co-ordination and the other was in charge of command and operations. They held different views on some issues, yes, but their differences are exaggerated. There was nothing special to it. Azazi had reached retirement milestone last December, while Yusuf was also due for retirement in any case.�
Another official told THISDAY that of all the Service Chiefs, �the best is Dike in terms of intellect, professionalism and integrity� his records have always impressed the president so it was felt he should stay. In meetings, his contributions are usually the best even while he rarely spoke. He has done so much in terms of training for the Air Force and usually returns unspent money sometimes in billions of naira every year.�
The President, according to sources, has met Dike several times and had one-on-one discussions with him on how to further professionalise the armed forces.
�The President believes in him,� the official said, while revealing that the issue of crude oil theft was a factor in one of the changes.
�With regards to Navy, there have been security reports of compromises with crude oil thieves on the part of some senior Naval chiefs which makes the resolution of the crisis difficult. To resolve it, two things needed to be done: root out the criminality and ensure development. But the second will not come without the first. The new man is said to be highly respected within the Navy for his professionalism, integrity and strength of character and has the capacity to deal with the criminal content of the Niger Delta crisis,� he said.
�The first two qualifications the president was looking for were professionalism and integrity. These four service chiefs meet them,� he added.
Aug212008