Ben Dunno, Warri
The Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt. General Tukur Buratai, has urged the civil populace to be more alive to the responsibility of divulging useful information that could assist security operatives in combating the menace of violence crimes in society.
He made the appeal while fielding question from newsmen at the Government House, Asaba, after commiserating with the acting Governor, Barrister Kingsley Otuaro, over the death of Major Gen. David Ejoor, an illustrious indigene of Delta State who served the Nigerian Army diligently.
The army boss who stated that information plays a very significant role in the ongoing war against criminals, especially those involved in kidnapping, hostage taking and insurgency solicited the cooperation of the locals in providing useful information about strange developments in their areas.
He explains that such information given to various security outfits goes a long way towards assisting the operatives to plan ahead on how to effectively to tackle such security challenges.
According to him, “we have seen what the Federal government is doing in terms of concern to this issue of insecurity. We have been given a marching order to ensure that the insecurity situation across the country is curtailed and we have since deployed.”
“We have our troops and we are still going on with mobilisation to ensure that those areas with security challenges are addressed.”
He noted that “so many bandits have been arrested and those that had encounters with our troops were neutralised.
“So far, you can see the efforts of the Inspector General of Police (IGP) with the Operation ‘POFADA’ achieving great success.
“At the Defence Headquarters, we are also moving fully into those areas with challenges in the North West, in the Middle Belt, where the farmers and herders clashes are prevalent.
“But I tell you most of the crisis is based on communal issues. And for all these to be finally settled, it requires community efforts. In other words, civil efforts are very critical in finding a lasting solution to these problems than the military or police efforts,” COAS stated.
“Kidnapping as other forms of security challenges in the other parts of the country have also been checkmated and brought to its nearest minimum.”
Burutai said: “But by and large, intelligence is very key in all these. And this is where the people come in. The people are the first point of contact in this intelligence. And this is where we need the support of the people.
“We need more information to identify all those criminals and their hideouts in every locality. These criminals are not from the blues. They are not from outer space. They are all within the community.
“Members of the community know who are the criminals are. The earlier they identify them and bring them out, the better,” he maintained.