Borno State Governor, Professor Babagana Umara Zulum has welcomed the appointment of new service chiefs, while expressing gratitude to outgoing service chiefs, particularly Chiefs of army, and Air staff, Lt. General Faruk Yahaya and Air Marshall Oladayo Amao with whom Borno government worked more closely in the fight against Insurgency in the North East.
Zulum spoke on Wednesday in Maiduguri, when the new service chiefs visited the North East to celebrate the frontline troops of Joint Task Force (North East) Operation HADIN KAI in the spirit of the Eid-El-Kabir Festival.
President Bola Tinubu announced on 19th June 2023 had appointed Major General Christopher Gwabin Musa as Chief of Defence Staff, Major General Taoreed Abiodun Lagbaja as Chief of Army Staff, Rear Admiral Emmanuel Ikechukwu Ogalla as Chief of Naval Stafff and Air Vice Marshal (AVM) Hassan Abubakar as the Chief of Air Staff.
While expressing his delight about the huge successes recorded by both the NAF independent air operations, particularly Operation WARUN, as well as the joint efforts through Operation HADIN KAI and combined multinational operations, the Governor noted that the outgoing service chiefs have been with us in the last two years, and during these challenges years, they immensely contributed to ongoing peace building efforts through the fight against imsurgency, and they helped greatly in other developmental efforts.
"We cant ignore these huge contributions, but then, as we all know, everything has an appointed time, we thank all the outgoing service chiefs for their contributions and we wish them the best in their future endeavors.
As for the new Chiefs, especially, Major General Christopher Musa who is chief of defence staff has worked here in Borno as theatre commander of operation Hadin Kai, he know all the issues and I am sure he will hit the ground running.
He reassured them of the same maximum support the Borno State Government gave their predecessors, and will continue to support the military with logistics as we have been regularly doing.
"We will continue to sustain our mobilization of communities for intelligence gathering, funding operations of thousands of volunteers, praying for our troops and volunteers in front lines and supporting their families as we have been doing” Zulum said.