Headlines
Defence chief talks tough: We will kill all non-state actors in the forests
BY KAZIE UKO
The Chief of Defence Staff, Maj Gen Lucky Irabor, says peace will return to Nigeria shortly as the military has finalised arrangements to rid the country of violent characters that had unsettled it.
Speaking at a one-day National Defence and Security Summit in Abuja, on Monday, Irabor said illegal occupants of communities, forests and countryside will be targeted so as to stabilise the country.
He said the military will ensure that the peace which eluded the country returns as soon as possible.
The military chief said it was no longer news that Nigeria currently experiences a wide range of national security threats, including terrorism, insurgency, farmers/herders conflict, ethno-religious conflicts, kidnapping and banditry.
“Our strategic objectives are manifold and imbued to neutralise non-state-actors and other agents of violence in our communities, forests and countryside to stabilise the security situation across the nation, to facilitate law and order; and lastly to provide the enabling environment for peace and development.
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“These presuppose that the military would need support from other security agencies during the operations and would be required to give support to others at different stages of the internal security effort.
“On behalf of the officers and men/women of the armed forces, I pledge our unalloyed loyalty to the C-in-C and the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The mandate shall be delivered; fear and despair shall be extinguished from our land. Nigeria will have peace again,” the CDS assured.
He stressed that the Armed Forces of Nigeria were committed to ensuring the return of peace to different parts of the country being confronted by insurgency, banditry, kidnapping and other forms of security challenge.