Buratai seeks collaboration between Army and DSS

The Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai, has called for collaboration between the army and the Department of State Service.

Buratai also called for joint training exercises and intelligence sharing between the two security agencies for successful joint operations.

The Army Chief’s comments were contained in an electronic mail on Friday signed by the Chief of Staff, Army Public Relations, Col. Onyema Nwachukwu, for the Acting Director, Army Public Relations, Col. Sani Usman.

Buratai was quoted as having made the call while paying a courtesy call on the Director-General of the DSS, Alhaji Lawal Daura, in Abuja.

He was said to have highlighted the strategic importance of the DSS, especially in the area of intelligence gathering and urged the nation’s secret police to collaborate with the army.

Buratai restated the determination of the army to carry out its statutory responsibility of defending the territorial integrity of the nation.

The Army Chief, who was quoted as stressing the importance of collaboration, offered to provide the requisite expertise when necessary.

In his response, the DSS boss, Daura, urged officers and men of the Nigerian Army to consider the DSS as partners in the security of the nation.

He was said to have described the DSS as an extension of the army.

Meanwhile, the National Security Adviser, Maj-Gen. Babagana Monguno (retd.) and the four service chiefs on Friday in Maiduguri promised to end the Boko Haram violence and return peace back to the troubled North-East.

Monguno, who led the four service chiefs, Gen. Abayomi Gabriel Olonishakin (Defence), Lt.-Gen Tukur Buratai (Army), Air Marshal Sadiq Baba Abubakar (Air Force) and the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Solomon Arase, said the recent change of guard in the nation’s security establishments by President Muhammadu Buhari was to end the persistent attacks by the Boko Haram terror group.

Monguno said, “There was a tendency of replacing the service chiefs with a mandate from the President to end Boko Haram insurgency that has claimed a lot of lives and property in the North-East. In less than 24 hours after we were sworn in and decorated by the President, we are here in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, for the reassessment of military operations and to end insurgency in three months.”