Tinubu Meets Ex-CDS Musa as Irabor Denies Claims of Boko Haram Recruits in Military

Amid renewed public anxiety over national security, former Chief of Defence Staff General Christopher Musa (retd.) arrived at the Presidential Villa on Monday evening for a closed-door meeting with President Bola Tinubu. The retired military chief, who stepped down from office on October 24, 2025, was received by senior security personnel shortly after arriving at 7:03 p.m. in dark-green northern-style attire. Newsmen could not immediately confirm the purpose of his visit, marking his first public engagement with the President since leaving office.

Musa’s appearance comes at a time when the country is grappling with widespread unrest following President Tinubu’s declaration of a nationwide security emergency. The emergency measures include the recruitment of twenty thousand new police officers, the deployment of forest guards and expanded protection for schools, churches and mosques in areas marked as high risk. Security agencies have also been directed to intensify joint operations across volatile zones in the North-West and North-Central.

The urgency surrounding these measures is underscored by a string of violent incidents. Recent attacks include the abduction of twenty-five schoolgirls from Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in Maga, Kebbi, the kidnapping of thirty-eight worshippers in Eruku, Kwara and the mass abduction of more than three hundred students and teachers at a Catholic school in Niger State. In a thirteen-day surge of coordinated assaults across the North, bandits abducted traditional rulers, worshippers, students, travellers and even a bride, taking no fewer than four hundred and ninety captives.

General Musa, a member of the 38th Regular Course of the Nigerian Defence Academy, was appointed Chief of Defence Staff by Tinubu in June 2023 and confirmed by the Senate shortly after. He held the position until the October reshuffle that brought Lt. Gen. Olufemi Oluyede into office.

Meanwhile, another former CDS, General Lucky Irabor (retd.), has firmly rejected claims circulating online that repentant Boko Haram fighters are being absorbed into the Nigerian Armed Forces. Speaking during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today, Irabor described the allegation as baseless and structurally impossible within the military’s recruitment process.

He said, “I do not know where this impression came from. How can they be recruited? This does not exist.”
Irabor explained that his years in command positions put him in direct view of counterterrorism operations, making the rumours illogical.

He added, “Even the most basic recruitment steps cannot be bypassed. You cannot join the military if community and local government authorities have not verified and cleared you.”

Irabor clarified that Operation Safe Corridor, the government’s deradicalisation and reintegration programme for low-risk former Boko Haram combatants, does not conduct recruitment for the Armed Forces and does not reinstate ex-fighters into military service.

Although he admitted that the country still faces significant security challenges, he maintained that they are not the result of military failings but rather gaps in manpower, equipment and deeper understanding of fast-evolving threats.

Operation Safe Corridor remains one of the Federal Government’s long-standing efforts to rehabilitate and reintegrate former Boko Haram members who surrender voluntarily, without placing them in any military role.