Service chiefs on Monday held a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari to discuss developments relating to the war against insurgency.
Speaking with state house correspondents at the end of the meeting, Abayomi Olonisakin, the chief of defence staff said the meeting reviewed the constraints and successes of the operation, ahead of the president’s December deadline for ending insurgency in the North East of Nigeria.
“We briefed the president on the security situation on ground after a 60-day review and we had to brief him on the challenges to ensure that the mandate we have is properly delivered,” he said.
“Of course, the challenges we are looking at are the issues of probably the weather as it were and some other logistics that we feel we should have so that the mandate can be quickly delivered.”
Asked if an extension to the December deadline to end insurgency was discussed, he said: “We have not said that. The mandate is that we should clear Boko Haram from the occupied territories and ensure that we reclaim all the lost grounds. That is exactly what we are doing.
“It is a military operation and military operations have timelines and these timelines, we are working on them assiduously.”