A new Commander has been appointed to take over war against Boko Haram being prosecuted by the 7 Division of the Nigerian Army, Maiduguri, Borno State. He is Brigadier-General Mahmud Yakubu Ibrahim, who has started work as Acting GOC with immediate effect. He replaces Major-General Ahmadu Mohammed, who was shot at by revolting soldiers the Maimalari Barracks, Maiduguri, on Tuesday.

The immediate removal of Maj.-Gen. Ahmadu Mohammed, which was reported yesterday morning by News Express, was formally announced later in the day by Director of Defence Information, Major-General Chris Olukolade, who said at a briefing in Maiduguri: “The GOC has been redeployed based on the decision of the headquarters.”

Maj.-Gen. Olukolade assured that “the military will sustain the current tempo in the fight against insurgents” because “the training of the Nigerian Army is such that this kind of change will not affect negatively the disposition of the troops in the fight against agents of insurgency in the country.”

Clearing the air on what really happened on Tuesday, Olukolade said: “On May 13, our troops who had been on an assignment in Chibok and had been patrolling were returning to Maiduguri when they were ambushed in Dalwa few kilometres to the city. One officer and five soldiers were killed, while a number of others were wounded. The division embarked on the normal recovery processes to recover the wounded soldiers for treatment and to evacuate the bodies of those killed to the morgue.

“The General Officer Commanding (GOC) was touched by the incident, so he wanted to sympathise with the troops by addressing those present. In the process some soldiers became unruly and began to fire some shots into the air. The situation was quickly brought under control and normalcy restored as there was calm in the cantonment and all normal operational activities are ongoing.”

The Defence spokesman announced the setting up of a military panel to investigate the incident. “It is not in the character of the Nigerian soldier to be unruly,” he said. “The inquiry will come out with the exact situation of things upon which the military authorities will take the next action. The ongoing inquiry will provide a lasting solution to what happened on May 13.”

•Photo shows Defence Spokesman, Maj.-Gen. Chris Olukolade.