We’re tackling insecurity meticulously, says Olonisakin

•Makarfi tasks President on Herders, killings
•HURIWA demands emergency in Kaduna

The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Gen. Abayomi Olanisakin, says the military is approaching the nation’s security challenge through careful planning and appraisals. Olanisakin, who dropped the hint during the opening of Defence Headquarters Contingency Plan SIMEX at Armed Forces Simulation Centre in Jaji, Kaduna State, maintained that combating the recurring security challenges requires careful planning to ensure success.

Represented by the Director of Campaign Planning, Maj.-Gen. Augustine Agundu, the CDS noted:  “In modern theatre of war, higher standards of training are required of troops so that they are able to operate with greater restraints.

“ The prevailing security situation in the country, is characterised by continued attacks, reprisals and retaliatory acts between farmers and herdsmen, banditry, cattle rustling, wanton killings as well as pipeline vandalism and oil theft which grossly affect our collective national well-being.”He continued: “Combating these threats needed careful planning and evaluation through continuous and qualitative training.

“Realistic training entails simulating a real situation that a commander could experience which would impact on him the knowledge to confront the fluidity of battle in crisis situations, especially in these times that combat is redefined with greater restraint to avoid collateral damage.

“This standard can only be achieved through making training more realistic at exercising the decision making process of commanders and their troops.”Olanisakin enjoined the military to carry out its constitutional responsibilities in a most professional manner with total loyalty to civil authorities.

However, former caretaker chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Ahmed Makarfi, has asked President Muhammadu Buhari to reassure Nigerians by securing their lives and property.

In a statement yesterday in Kaduna, the erstwhile governor of Kaduna State condemned the latest killings in Gwaska, Birnin Gwari council area and other atrocities being committed by terrorists nationwide.He explained that “the frequency, impotence as well as impunity with which bandits raid communities in some parts of the country and leave unchallenged are a source of worry to all patriotic Nigerians.”

Also, the senator representing Kaduna North in the National Assembly, Suleiman Othman Hunkuyi, has accused Governor Nasir El-Rufai of misleading the people regarding the controversial $350 million loan requested by his administration.

He contended that the facility, requested in 2017, was rejected by the Senate in the interest of the state and the people who were to bear the burden of repayment in addition to an existing $231 million loan. He stated this in Kaduna during a chat with newsmen.

Also yesterday, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) enjoined the Federal Government to declare a state of security emergency in Kaduna with a view to enforcing full military measures to combat the growing scourge of armed militancy and killings of innocent villagers in the southern part of the state. 

In a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko in Abuja, the organisation also flayed the governor for “stoking the embers of hatred and instigating politically motivated violence against his political adversaries through the issuance of hate messages purportedly cursing the three senators from state for halting the approval of a loan of over $300 million from the World Bank.”