With all eyes on the off-season elections in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi States, the Military high command has warned adventurous politicians, persons or their thugs attempting to wear military gear to carry out nefarious activities in order to undermine the good image of the armed forces to think twice lest they court the military’s toxic trouble.
The Defence Headquarters (DHQ) which handed this warning on Thursday to politicians, groups or hoodlums planning to wreck havoc, cause mayhem and disrupt elections by disguising in military gear in key areas across the three states, said that such actions will be met with the military’s full force.
Director Defence Media Operations (DMO), Major-General Edward Buba, who gave the stern warning in Abuja at a regular bi-weekly briefing of defence correspondents on military operations in the country advised such politicians, groups or hoodlums to think twice or regret their actions.
“The military is fully deployed in strength for the election to emplace a safe environment for peaceful voters to come out, cast their votes and exercise their legitimate franchise”, he said
“Our message to such persons or groups is that there will be injurious consequences for such actions. The military will not fold its arms and watch its image dragged to the mud,” he declared.
Major-General Edward Buba who laced his briefing the media on the ongoing military operations by the Armed Forces of Nigeria (AFN) to rid the country of terrorists, bandits, kidnappers and other criminal elements with some assessment video clips of high scale damage carried out by troops on bandits and Boko Haram terrorists gave assurance that the armed forces would continue to exert maximum military pressure on disoriented groups that seek to derail any progress achieved towards peace and security in the country.
“There is no doubt that these groups must be defeated and are indeed being defeated,” he declared, stressing that, “It is s for these reasons we are inflicting severe damage on the terrorists, insurgents and violent extremists through our operations across the country. Accordingly, we are targeting their leadership, infrastructure and foot soldiers’’.
Major General Edward Buba gave an insight into factors responsible for the military’s accomplishments, saying, “The coordination between the air and ground forces is like never seen before and yielding amazing results and achievements. We are expecting new platforms that would further enhance our capabilities to further root out the terrorists and destroy their military capabilities.”
The defence media spokesman also used the occasion to comment on recent criticisms from some quarters over operations carried out by the military by saying that the Armed Forces of Nigeria (AFN) under the current leadership of the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General CG Musa remained a leading fighting force in Africa on account of its prowess, professionalism and discipline.
“It is important to highlight that the AFN is a disciplined and well-trained force that conducts its operation within the ambit of laws governing human rights and that of armed conflict. We have rules of engagement that are followed in the course of our actions. Nevertheless, there are standing court martial that try erring personnel found wanting during operations.
“There is therefore the need for us to be circumspect of groups and organizations that embark on misinformation and disinformation to give the military a negative image. They have ulterior motives for their actions.”
Advising the public to be wary of the sinister motives and antics of some misguided interests, Major General Edward Buba gave the instance of circulation of old footages of past incidents of many years that have been exhaustively tried at court martial as if they were recent occurrences, describing such moves as wicked, tendentious and mischievous.
According to him, military operations of the last one week resulted in 113 neutralized terrorists with 300 of them arrested just as troops also arrested 25 perpetrators of oil theft and rescued 91 kidnapped hostages.
‘’In the South South, troops denied oil thieves of the estimated sum of Five Hundred and Seventy One Million Seven Hundred and Ninety Three Thousand Three Hundred and Fifty Naira (N571,793,350.00) while troops recovered 129 assorted weapons and 717 assorted ammunition with the breakdown as follows:
‘’One unserviceable AA gun, one RPG tube, 5 RPG bombs, one GT3 rifle, 54 AK47 rifles, 8 locally fabricated rifles, one locally made rifle, 2 pistols, 2 pump action guns, 2 dane guns, 4 locally fabricated pistol, 3 skeleton of AK47 rifles, 9 hand grenades, one unserviceable AK47 rifle, 14 magazines, 321 rounds of 7.62mm special ammo, 40 live cartridges.
‘’Others were 53 rounds of 5.45mm x 39mm ammo, 35 rounds of 7.62mm NATO, 100 rounds of short gun, 11 rifle body, 7 breech block, 7 rifle butts, 8 rifle muzzles, 9 piston assembles, 210 springs, one drilling machine, hand filling machines, 10 magazine purges, IED making materials, 4 boafeng radios, 15 motorcycles, 20 mobile phones and the sum of N348, 200.00, amongst other items’’, he said.
He further disclosed that troops in the Niger Delta area discovered and destroyed 76 dugout pits, 35 boats, 95 storage tanks, 10 vehicles, 129 cooking ovens, 5 pumping machine, 13 speedboats, 6 outboard engine, one vessel, 3 motorcycles and 49 illegal refining sites while they recovered 514,640 litres of stolen crude oil, 339,315 litres of illegally refined AGO and 775 litres of DPK.
