The Chairman, House Committee on Defence, Babajimi Benson, on Tuesday, detailed what transpired at the House of Representatives when the Service Chiefs and the Inspector General of Police made an appearance.
General Christopher Musa was the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Lieutenant-General Taoreed Lagbaja was the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Air Marshal Hasan Abubakar was the Chief of Air Staff (CAS), Vice Admiral Emmanuel Ogalla was the Chief of Naval Staff (CNS), and Kayode Egbetokun was the Inspector General of Police.
Hon. Benson stated he was “impressed” with their appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today, as well as the suggestions they made.
“Absolutely, it takes me back to the judgement in appointing them first of all, they are all course 39, the three of them, Chief of Army Staff, Chief of Air Staff and the Chief of Naval Staff, they all got into NDA at the same time.”
“There is camaraderie, there is synergy and they all gave an excellent account of themselves despite the initial issues we had with them because they didn’t turn up due to unforeseen reasons on a scheduled date,” he said.
“They came in today and we were thoroughly impressed with them.”
Quizzed further on what transpired in the closed-door meeting, the lawmaker insisted that such information can’t be divulged for the sake of national security.
He said, “We had to go into a closed-door because they are Security Chiefs even having the five of them in a location alone there is a bit of risk in that and also the information they were going to provide .”
“Enemies are watching both internally and externally. Whatever they say may be used against the nation. On some occasions, they explained to me that they had been to some forests where they had seen some bandits watching TV
“Information has to be properly preserved, the speaker in his wisdom said we should have an executive session.”