From Timothy Olanrewaju, Maiduguri
Force Commander, Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF), Maj Gen Abdul Ibrahim, has hailed the resilience of troops and sacrifices of wounded and slain military personnel in the war against terrorists around the Lake Chad region.
Gen Ibrahim, who visited headquarters of Sector 1, Mora in Cameroon and Bagasola, Sector 2 headquarters at Bagasola in Chad, two Nigeria’s neighbours, yesterday, extolled the doggedness of soldiers and officers fighting to clear terrorists from the area.
“The FC commended the leadership and soldiers of both sectors for their relentless efforts in the fight against the Boko Haram terrorists in the Lake Chad Basin region and paid special tributes to the gallant troops who had paid the supreme sacrifice,” the spokesman, Capt Benn Raphael, said in a statement, yesterday, from the force headquarters in Ndjamena, Chad’s capital.
The spokesman said the commander’s visit was to identify and commend the troops, as well as pay some token as compensation to wounded-in-action and killed-in-action soldiers in the course of two major operations; Desert Sanity and Sharan Fage. He also commended the Sectors for their stabilisation operations, which led to the return of thousands of displaced persons (IDPs).
Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad are members of the Lake Chad Basin, and deployed troops to the MNJTF as a regional force to clear Boko Haram and ISWAP terrorists around the nations’ boundaries with Nigeria, which largely forms the Lake Chad region over IDPs and refugees to their ancestral homes as well as inducing surrenders. The FC noted that the compensation was just a sign of recognition of their efforts in the fight against terrorism.