Nigeria’s Military to Build Capacity of Locals to Defend Themselves Against Terrorists, Bandits 

Nigeria’s Defence Headquarters (DHQ), on Tuesday, pledged to build the capacity of locals to defend themselves against terrorists and bandits’ attacks in the Northwest, as part of effort to cripple the nefarious activities of the criminal gangs in the zone. 

The DHQ also, announced its plan to overhaul the joint military operations in Northwest with a view to collapsing all the operations into one central command as part of the grand plan to deny terrorists and bandits freedom of action and guarantee the needed peace for socio-economic prosperity of the zone. 

The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Gen Christopher Musa, announced these plan in Abuja during a joint press conference with service chiefs, the Inspector General of Police and other heads of security agencies. 

The Defence Chief, also assured Nigerians, especially residents of northwest, that the day of notorious bandits’ kingpin, Bello Turji Kachalla, terrorising the entire zone was numbered, as troops will soon delete him from the surface of the earth. 

Musa also disclosed that the unified joint operation which is patterned after operation Hadin Kai in the Northeast and scheduled to be launched soon, is to be code named “Operation Fansar Yamma, and will be headquartered in Sokoto. 

The CDS who just returned from a tour of Northwest beginning from Sokoto State, in company of the Minister of State for Defence, following President Bola Tinubu’s directive, also blamed Zamfara community for supporting and providing intelligence to bandits and terrorists against troops deployed to protect them against attacks. 

Musa explained that it was the community that provided intelligence to terrorists that two military Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected

(MRAP), armored vehicles were trapped in a swampy area around the community and the terrorists mobilised to the location and burnt the military hardware.

Cautioning the community for working against the troops, Musa said, “If you train a monster, when it grows, you will be its next victim”.

Responding to questions during the joint press conference, the Chief of Defence Staff gave further insight on building the capacity of locals in the Northwest to tackle the growing security threats.

According to him: “For us to maintain adequate security, we must Innovate and evolve strategy that works. The military and the security agencies can not be everywhere, but we would try as much as possible to be there. If we build the capacity of the locals to be able to defend themselves before the military come in, it will help. That is what we adopted in the Northeast with the Civilians Joint Task Force and the hunters and it has worked. We are working with the state government to achieve this, we are not working in isolation. We know the relevance of the community, and the state government, so we are working as a team to ensure that we pull this strategy through”. 

On the unification of military operations in the Northwest to achieve the desired result, Musa again explained: “After our visit to Sokoto we did the overview of the entire operations and realised that there are need to harmonise our operations. We have operations Hadarin Daji and Whirl Stroke, within Northwest region. And we have seen that there is need to harmonise those operations into one like we have operation Hadin Kai in the Northeast. It is going to be called operation “Fansar Yamma,” it means securing the west. The intention is to ensure that we synergise all our efforts in tackling the security threats in the Northwest. We are going to have one commander who will supervise all the troops in the states to ensure that effort to crumble activities of the adversaries is achieved”.

Earlier in his remarks before the press conference, the Chief of Defence Training and Operations, Defence Headquarters, Maj Gen Emeka Onumajuru, said that the operational successes of the troops in the Northeast theatre had led to many displaced persons returning back to their ancestral homes. 

He also noted that troops of operation Udoka, had degraded the military capabilities of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) to undermine federal and state authorities in the Southeast. 

He said: “In the north-east, particularly the Borno area. There have been good returns, approximately 170,000 locals have been able to return to their home lands in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa state. Also our adversaries, about 125,000 terrorists and their families have so far surrendered to troops”.

Linus Aleke

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