By Ndahi Marama

MAIDUGURI — Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State has lauded the appointment of two indigenes of the state by President Muhammadu Buhari as security chiefs, saying Nigeria now has the best of chances to overcome  the challenges of insurgency facing it, since 2009.

Shettima spoke while hosting members of the Insurgency Victims Support Fund under the chairmanship of Lt. General T. Y. Danjuma (rtd) who paid him a courtesy call at  Government House, Maiduguri, yesterday.

Shettima said Buhari’s choice of retired Major General Babagana Monguno and Major General Tukur Buratai as National Security Adviser and Chief of Army Staff respectively, was a classic case of putting square pegs in square holes.

According to the governor, with their appointment, both men have been given the mandate of liberating their state which is at the centre of Boko Haram activities while they possess ancestral knowledge of the Borno terrain in addition to being direct victims of insurgency attacks with  their relatives killed, their residences destroyed and their towns raided.

His words: “Yesterday was the happiest moment of my life. President Muhammadu Buhari made a strong statement by his decision to appoint two highly competent sons of Borno to the offices of the National Security Adviser and the Chief of Army Staff. I think his strategy was to get people with ancestral knowledge of the Borno terrain.

“Major General Tukur Buratai is even a direct victim of Boko Haram attacks. He lost family members when his residence was attacked earlier this year in Buratai, a town in Biu Local Government Area. Monguno was destroyed and once occupied by Boko Haram and that is where the new NSA, Major General Babagana Monguno (rtd) hails from.

“Insha Allah, with the combined efforts of other competent service chiefs and all Nigerians, the war on terror will soon be won by the supremacy of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

“The Governor called on all Nigerians to support President Buhari whom he said, has left no one in doubt about his persistent commitment to ending the Boko Haram insurgency that has bedeviled the country”.