Army destroys six Boko Haram vehicles, arrests four suspects

Graduates 55 peacekeepers on civilian protection

The army has destroyed six Boko Haram vehicles along with logistics supplies and arrested four suspects in Maiduguri, Borno State. The vehicles comprise four pick-up trucks and two Peugeot station wagons, allegedly used in transporting food and assorted provisions to terrorists’ hideouts in the Lake Chad region and Sambisa Forest.

Acting General Officer Commanding (GOC), 7 Division, Brig-Gen. Abdul Ibrahim, disclosed this on Saturday in Maiduguri, while supervising the symbolic destruction of vehicles and materials along Gubio road.

According to him, some of the suspects have been identified as Abubakar Sadik, Fannami Modu and Modu Chellu of various addresses in Maiduguri metropolis.

He said based on intelligence reports, the suspects had been supplying Boko Haram with logistics from Maiduguri to Sambisa Forest and Lake Chad region hideouts.

“Despite the warnings, some of them still continued with the illicit and illegal business of supplying logistics and other materials to Boko Haram,” he noted.

Meanwhile, the Martin Luther Agwai International Leadership and Peacekeeping Centre of the Nigerian Army has graduated 55 officers who underwent training on Comprehensive Protection of Civilians (CPOC) and Military Observers (MILOBs), to prepare them for peacekeeping missions.

The training, which was done in collaboration with the United Nations Mobile Training Team at the centre in Jaji, Kaduna, exposed the officers to various skills and knowledge to protect civilians while on peacekeeping missions.

Commandant of the centre, Maj.-Gen. James Ataguba, explained that the training was organised to equip and qualify the personnel to be deployed as MILOBs in any UN and African Union (AU) or Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) mission.

The event was a combined graduation of 30 MILOBs and 25 personnel who were trained on CPOC. Ataguba, who noted that civilians constituted the majority of casualties in the war against terrorists, added that “the priority of the government and its military must shift from the traditional capture of territory to the protection of civilians during armed conflict.”

The personnel were drawn from the armed forces, Department of State Services (DSS), Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), immigration and the correctional service.He also said that the participants in the two-week training on CPOC would be qualified to organise and deliver training on protection of civilians.

Ataguba noted that peacekeeping missions were dangerous and needed quick decisions to overcome and succeed. His words, “The training objectives are to generally prepare the participants for duties in peacekeeping operations so that they can fulfil military aspects of UN peacekeeping mandates in professional and integrated manners.”