DHQ DID NOT COMMENT ON SENATE DIRECTIVE

DHQ DID NOT COMMENT ON SENATE DIRECTIVE

The attention of the Defence Headquarters has been drawn to an incredible online news report in the Daily Newswatch newspaper of 27^th February, 2014 where it claimed that the Director of Defence Information, Major General Chris Olukolade granted it a telephone interview on the Senate directive to the Chief of Army Staff.  The paper claimed in the purported interview that Gen Olukolade said the Senate does not have the powers to order the military around. It went further to attribute several unbelievable statements to General Olukolade as regards the Senate Committee on Defence and Army’s directive to the Chief of Army Staff on the fight against terror in the north east.

We wish to state categorically and unequivocally  that the Director of Defence Information did not at any time and in any form grant interview to the said newspaper or any other media organization on the issue. The Defence Headquarters is completely at loss on how the paper concocted such story and mischievously attributes it to Gen Olukolade.

It is even more shocking to note that the paper willfully syndicated the spurious interview to some online media outfits with the intent to brew discontent between the revered Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigerian and the Nigerian Armed Forces. 

The Defence Headquarters and indeed the Nigerian Armed Forces hold the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in the highest esteem knowing that as a key arm of Government whose responsibility it is to make laws for the country, its resolution and decisions are not to be trivialized, questioned or repudiated in the manner the paper attributed to the director of Defence Information. We challenge the paper to produce the tape recording of the said interview if it ever lays claim to any credibility as a conveyor of truth.

The general public is hereby urged to totally disregard the spurious and     non-existent ‘interview’ as it is clearly a handiwork of mischief makers who are craving for undeserved popularity.