Jonathan orders Army to stop Boko Haram •We’re working towards that -COAS

PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan has directed the Nigerian Army to play a key role in ensuring that Boko Haram members, who have killed over 1,000 innocent Nigerians,

are wiped out once and for all.

The Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant-General Azubuike Ihejirika, who disclosed this in Abuja on Wednesday while briefing newsmen on the activities lined up for the 2011 Nigerian Army Celebration Day (NADCEL), announced that the Army would be setting up some special units towards this end.

According to him, some of the officers to be involved in the special units had already left for abroad for training, while the rest would be trained locally in various military institutions, adding that the Army had established a robust dog unit that would assist it in investigation and intelligence gathering.

The army chief said that internal security operations everywhere were civil-led and not outright military operations, adding that the Boko Haram tactics were new, as the terrorists lived among people and they needed to be exposed and arrested.

He disclosed that when they were arrested, the arms were not usually found on them, because they had a hiding place for them.

The Chief of Army Staff, said that the army was leading the operation, as it was an intelligence gathering one, and that it would need the cooperation of community leaders .

He said that the involvement of the military in the operation was mainly because of the sophistication and the type of weapons Boko Haram used, adding that amnesty or dialogue with any group was not the concern of the army.

“Our concern is that people are committing crimes and killing people and this must stop.”

General Ihejirika said because Boko Haram had succeeded in detonating one or two bombs did not make them invicinble, that their action was purely criminal that must be contained at all costs.

On how far the joint Army/Police investigation into the killing of the DPO and DCO of Badagry division last month had gone, the army chief said that they were waiting for the report and that once it was submitted, they would take it up from there, as the army did not condone indiscipline, stressing that it was painful for a soldier to display act of indiscipline, because he was wearing uniform that could be removed from him, once he misbehaved outside the barracks.

The army boss lamented that there were several unpatriotic Nigerians that were abetting the Boko Haram sect, and if the army fought the Civil War to keep this country one it was ready to make the same supreme sacrifice to ensure peace in the country.

“Nobody should be indicated or harassed by the Boko Haram sect in any part of the country,” he said, noting that one of the greatest problems Nigerians had was that they were too accommodating to strangers, even with the country’s borders.

He charged the immigration and Customs officials attached to the borders, where the arms and explosives were being brought in, to have a change of attitude to their duties. He stated that criminality would be checked if they effectively policed the borders.

The army chief added that the army had good reasons to celebrate elaborately this year’s NADCEL, having achieved a lot within the past one year as they had continued to build upon the gains recorded over the years.

According to him, “we have fully subordinated ourselves to civil authority and remained apolitical in our professional duties and constitutional roles.”

At the global level, he said that the army had contributed immensely to improving Nigeria’s image through its widely acknowledged roles in bringing peace to troubled areas under the United Nations and African Union peace support operations.

The army, he stated, had set standards in the areas of internal security as it had also reviewed and improved on its training in conventional and internal security operations with the various formations in its training institutions and units.

The army chief added that the Nigerian Army peacekeeping centre in Jaji is now recognised as one of the best training institutions for peace support operations in the world.

The Chief of Army Staff assured Nigerians that in line with President Jonathan’s vision of stick and carrot, the army would, in aid of civil authority, utilise a more robust and integrated military approach to finding a lasting solution to the Boko-Haram canker.

He announced that as part of the larger Nigerian society, the army had identified the need, more than ever before, for a more cordial civil/military relationship in the quest for a developed Nigeria and had consequently created the department of Civil Military Affairs headed by an officer of the rank of a Major General.