THE Senate has confirmed the former Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, as the new Minister of Defence.
The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, made the confirmation on Wednesday, December 3, after a unanimous agreement by the senators during Musa’s screening.
Akpabio also noted that the lawmakers commenced a process Wednesday morning for designating kidnapping as terrorism and approving death sentence for kidnappers without an option of fine.
The ICIR reported that President Bola Tinubu announced Musa’s nomination as the new Minister of Defence.
In the letter sent to the Senate on Tuesday, Tinubu expressed confidence in Musa’s ability to “strengthen Nigeria’s security architecture” and revitalise the ministry at a time when the country is grappling with escalating insecurity.
The screening commenced shortly after Akpabio read Tinubu’s request during plenary, asking lawmakers to consider and confirm the former CDS as a replacement for ex-Defence Minister Mohammed Badaru, who resigned on Monday due to health concerns.
Akpabio then ordered a suspension of Senate rules to permit the retired military chief to enter the chamber for his screening.
Akpabio requested the new minister to investigate answer questions over the abduction of 24 students abducted from Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School, Maga, Kebbi State.
Musa assured the Senate that he would investigate the incident and others Akpabio highlighted and work with all the security agencies to tackle the security challenges facing the country.
“I can assure you that we are going to investigate and all those found culpable will face the law accordingly. I will make sure that we monitor all the activities of the Armed Forces and the security agencies to make sure that they remain very, very professional. Any information that comes will be treated adequately and I’ll make sure that the troops also take action as quickly as possible,” Musa said.
While urging governors and citizens to support him, he assured Nigerians that he would do his best to ensure stability is fully restored in the country.
“I want to assure Nigerians that are coming on board, having served 39 years all through my career in the armed forces, we have seen what is going on, we have understood what is going on, and we know what we need. Our appearance is that we are poor. But as we come on stream, we are going to come out to you and show you exactly what we need for us to do better and for us to achieve success.
“We can win this war, but we must work together. We must get the support. Because I can tell you, not counting on us, there are still a lot of gaps within the Armed Forces that are also mitigating against them being able to achieve success fully in what we are doing,” he said.
He added, “Like I said, we need the state governors, we need everyone to be on board for us to be able to achieve that. So my assurance is, from day one, we are going to monitor and review all our activities, all the operations that we are doing, and what we have done. We are going to take measures to address them, where things need to be done, we are going to handle, we are going to come back against them because there are areas that we need their support. I want to make sure the issue of funding, the gap in funding is going to be extremely difficult.”
The minister said he was commissioned into the Nigerian Army as a Second Lieutenant in 1991 and progressed through a series of command and staff roles.
In 2021, he was appointed Theatre Commander of Operation Hadin Kai and later led the Nigerian Army Infantry Corps before being appointed Chief of Defence Staff in 2023.
His predecessor, Mohammed Badaru, who took office as Defence Minister on August 21, 2023, resigned on Monday, December 1, citing ill health as the reason he could no longer perform his duties effectively. Tinubu accepted his resignation and thanked him for his service.
Badaru recently faced public criticism following a BBC Hausa interview, in which he said some terrorists were difficult to target because their forest hideouts were “too dense for bombs to reach.”
Nanji is an investigative journalist with the ICIR. She has years of experience in reporting and broadcasting human angle stories, gender inequalities, minority stories, and human rights issues. She has documented sexual war crimes in armed conflict, sex for grades in Nigerian Universities, harmful traditional practices and human trafficking.