The Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Christopher Musa has said it will take the support of citizens for the military to defeat terrorism and criminality.
The Defence Chief called on Nigerians to take ownership of the fight against terrorism in order to defeat the ideology and desist from acts that demoralise troops.
He said the military was winning the war but urged Nigerians to take ownership of the fight to eradicate the ideology.
He said over 140,000 repentant terrorists have so far surrendered to troops indicating an end to the over a decade war in the Northeast.
“Terrorism is going down. We’re succeeding, no doubt about that. Over 75,000 surrendered back then, and now we have over 140,000 who have surrendered even in the Northcentral. Like I said, if we want it to end, Nigerians must take ownership of it and say, ‘Look, we’re not supporting it. We’ll never give any support to any terrorists,’ and this will end.”
He however, lamented that some Nigerians see the fight against terrorism as that of the military alone and therefore providing logistics support to the terrorists.
A military veteran,Col. Hassan Stan-Labo rtd described the lack of citizens support as stifling to the operation and giving room for mistakes like the one in Kaduna, noting that terrorists try to mix with the civilian populace to evade attacks.
“Terrorists today get embedded with civilians in hospitals, worship places, schools etc in a bid to evade firepower. Drone strikes just like conventional air combat strikes could come with some human errors resulting in collateral damages or outright target miss.
“Speaking professionally, incidents of this nature are likely occurrences in battle fronts,” he said.
The secretary general, International Institute of professional Security (IIPS) Dr. Abdullahi Mohammed Jabi, called on Nigerians to support the military in order to restore the much needed peace. He said no army will intentionally kill or allow its citizens to be killed.
“No army will intentionally want to kill it’s people. We sympathise with the bereaved. We have to understand that they are disadvantaged in terms of manpower. Now that they have acquired this capabilities, they are using it.
“Such collateral damages are part of asymmetric warfare even at the international level. It’s not as if it’s only the NA that is making the error. We have it in the war between Hamas and Israel, Ukraine and Russia,” he commented.
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