Defence Ministers of the region had proposed a rotational command of six months each, to be headed by commanders from each participating country, but Buhari argued that the strategy would be counter-productive.
“While I agree that this is a joint operation with shared responsibilities, I am, however, of the opinion that military operations that are subjected to a rapid turnover of command and control structures, six months duration, as it is being proposed in the documents before us, do not augur well for effectiveness and efficiency. Such a process will undermine, even if it is not intended, the military capacity to sustain the push against the insurgents, who also have the uncanny ability to adapt and rejig their operational strategies.
“I am inclined, on account of the above, to suggest for Your Excellencies consideration that Nigeria retains the position of the Force Commander of the MNJTF for the period of the war effort. This command will be to the effectiveness of military strategy, since Nigeria will be providing the bulk of the troops and the main theatre of the war is on Nigerian soil”, Buhari told his brother heads of state.
Nigeria has pledged $100million for the take-off of the Multi-National Joint Task force (MNJTF), in Ndjamena, Chad, with a Nigerian military officer, Major General Tukur Buratai appointed as the pioneer commander.
Buratai told the BBC on Tuesday the violence had been “dragging on for too long and we want to get a final solution to it.”
Buhari, 72, has made ending the militants’ reign of terror his top priority and has already moved the military’s command centre from Abuja to Maiduguri, in the rebels’ northeastern stronghold.
Last weekend, he appealed to world leaders at the G7 summit in Germany for more help in combating extremism and visited Chad and Niger to push for longer-term co-operation on security threats.
The MNJTF was first agreed upon in May last year, a month after Boko Haram shocked the world by kidnapping more than 200 schoolgirls in northeast Nigeria.
It was supposed to be operational in November 2014 but was dogged by wrangling between anglophone Nigeria and its francophone neighbours, whom it has long viewed with suspicion.
Reviving the force was brought to the fore in January, as Boko Haram hit northeast Nigeria almost daily and began to eye territorial gains in the border regions of Niger, Chad and Cameroon.
An 8,700-member unit backed by the African Union was finally agreed with its base in N’Djamena, costing some $30 million (27 million euros) to run over the next year.
The new force will replace an existing coalition of Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon that has claimed a series of successes against Boko Haram since February.
Nnamdi Obasi, senior Nigeria researcher at the International Crisis Group, said this week’s meetings could improve coordination between the neighbours.
“But improvements in coordination will need to be sustained by military, intelligence and other assistance from the wider international community if they are to achieve early and durable results,” he said in an email exchange.