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In a move that caught the nation by surprise, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu relieved General Christopher Gwabin Musa of his duties as the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), replacing him with General Olufemi Oluyede, a Yoruba officer from the South-West.
Though the Presidency framed the action as a routine reshuffle aimed at “realigning national security leadership,” beneath the official rhetoric lies a deeper political and ideological struggle — one that reveals much about the direction of Tinubu’s administration and the competing visions within Nigeria’s security architecture.
General Musa’s exit did not occur in a vacuum. It comes at a time of renewed insecurity across the North-West and North-East, rising political discontent, and quiet murmurs of a failed coup plot allegedly foiled in early October.
But insiders say Musa’s removal was not just about performance — it was about philosophy, loyalty, and politics. His uncompromising military doctrine clashed sharply with the more conciliatory approach favoured by Tinubu’s kitchen cabinet and the National Security Adviser, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu.
The Ideological Rift: Peace Versus Force
At the heart of Musa’s dismissal lies a deep and growing disagreement over how to handle Nigeria’s worsening insecurity — particularly in the North-West, where banditry and terrorism have merged into an entrenched criminal economy.
General Musa’s approach was firm and uncompromising. He consistently maintained that terrorists and bandits are enemies of the state, not aggrieved citizens to be negotiated with. He argued that peace without justice was an illusion, and that dialogue with killers would only embolden others. His philosophy was shaped by years of combat leadership in the North-East under Operation Lafiya Dole and Operation Hadin Kai, where he saw firsthand how past “peace deals” with armed groups often collapsed into renewed violence.
President Tinubu’s camp, however, has embraced a different philosophy — one driven by political pragmatism rather than military doctrine. The NSA Nuhu Ribadu, supported by some northern APC governors, has championed a “peace-through-dialogue” initiative, aimed at calming volatile regions by opening communication channels with armed groups.
The idea, they say, is to buy stability first, then development. Critics call it appeasement; the government calls it strategy.
The Asadus-Sunnah Factor
The ideological divide became public when Sheikh Musa, popularly known by his alias Asadus-Sunnah, announced that he had initiated peace talks with the notorious bandit leader Bello Turji — one of the most feared figures in Zamfara and Sokoto States. Sheikh Musa claimed that the initiative was undertaken “with the full backing of the National Security Adviser, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, and other top government officials.”
When the claim made national headlines, many expected the government to deny it. But neither the Office of the NSA (ONSA) nor the Presidency issued any rebuttal. The only comment came from the Defence Headquarters, which stated that it had “no official record of Turji’s surrender.” That statement, while distancing the military, did not deny the existence of talks— a silence that analysts interpreted as tacit approval from the top.
The absence of denial confirmed what many insiders had whispered: that the Federal Government was quietly supporting local peace initiatives with select bandit groups, hoping to pacify regions where military operations had failed to yield lasting peace.
Musa’s Resistance and Isolation
Within the National Security Council, this approach sparked quiet friction. General Musa, known for his candour, was reportedly uncomfortable with what he viewed as the “politicization of security.” He believed that negotiating with warlords was a betrayal of fallen soldiers and a dangerous
