Plateau Attack Will Never Happen Again – DHQ

The Defence Headquarters (DHQ) has said the carnage that took place in Plateau State will never repeat itself in the state or anywhere else in the country.

Director of defence media operations Major General Edward Buba stated this while giving a scorecard of troops operations across the country  between January and December 2023.

He said the conduct of kinetic and non-kinetic operations in the second half of the year  significantly curtailed attacks between farmers and herders in Plateau State.

However, the situation turned gloomy with the recent attacks on Bokkos local government area and some parts of Barkin Ladi local government area.

He said  Bokkos and Barkin Ladi span about 2,315 square kilometres with over 350 villages, mostly dispersed.

General Buba said the distance between some of the villages and troops’ locations is over 90 kilometres and sometimes difficult to access because of the rugged terrains which are mostly inaccessible to vehicles, thus affecting the reaction time to incidents, except when there is credible intelligence before the attack.

He, however, assured that the attacks on Plateau would never repeat itself.

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“We have put modalities in place to ensure that whatever limited us the last time that did not allow us to get to some of these locations on time has been eliminated. We are aware of the letters and we are doing something. We seriously going after those who perpetrated the crime,” he said.

He said troops in the period killed 6,886 terrorists and other criminal elements, arrested 6,970 suspects and rescued 4,488 kidnapped hostages.

Buba said the troops recovered 3,320 assorted weapons and 39,075 assorted ammunition.

Speaking on the fight against crude oil theft, he said troops recovered 100,316,600 litres of crude oil, 60,339,426 litres of AGO, 3,465,450 litres of DPK and 3,544,990 litres of PMS.

He said the security situation in 2023 remained fluid, complex and dynamic with the threat morphing in form and scale.

“This unpredictable nature of the threat and the attendant demands for stability have continued to pose significant challenges for security forces. Consequently, various forces have continued to evolve tactics, techniques and procedures (TTP) to professionally respond to these threats,” he said.

Buba said the  armed forces had been developing the desired enablers to overcome the country’s numerous threats, adding that the application of kinetic and non-kinetic efforts in collaboration with other services and security agencies had continued to shape the operating environment.

He said attention was given to providing relevant resources to enhance troops’ capacity to defeat the threats.

“The cumulative outcome of these efforts is reflected in increased stability achieved across the various theatres of operations. Troops are in a dominant position and are winning the war,” he said.