President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday, May 27, 2021 appointed a new Chief Of Army Staff, COAS. The new COAS is Major General Farouk Yahaya.
1.Before his appointment Yahaya was the General Officer Commanding 1 Division of the Nigerian Army.
2.Farouk Yahaya was the incumbent Theatre Commander of the Counter Terrorism and Counter-Insurgency military outfit in the North East code-named Operation HADIN KAI.
3.He graduated from the Nigerian Defence Academy and Salford University.
Farouk Yahaya’s appointment comes six days after the former COAS, Lt General Ibrahim Attahiru and ten other military personnel died in an air crash while on an official trip to Kaduna State.
You will recall that President Buhari appointed late Attahiru in January 2021 after calls from different quarters that the federal government should sack the service chiefs to ensure shakeup in the country’s security architecture.
Earlier, the Nigerian government had declared Monday, 24 May 2021, a work-free day for Nigeria’s Armed Forces in honour of the Chief of Army Staff, Attahiru and ten other military officials, who died in a plane crash.
The Nigerian Army had earlier announced the death of General Ibrahim Attahiru. The Chief of Defence Staff, had earlier ordered an investigation to unravel the causes of the plane crash that killed Ibrahim Attahiru.
Meanwhile, Defence Information Brigadier General Onyema Nwachukwu said the incident occurred due to inclement weather at about 1800 hours.
However, a former Presidential spokesman, Reno Omokri, had opined that President Muhammadu Buhari ought to have declared that flags should be flown at half-mast in honour of General Ibrahim Attahiru and his colleagues.