Be ruthless with terrorists, COAS orders troops

HURIWA tasks govt on improved human rights

To protect Nigeria’s corporate existence, the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt.-Gen. Faruk Yahaya has directed the military to be ruthless with Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) terrorists.

Addressing the 2022 Sallah luncheon for wounded troops at the Maimalari Cantonment, Maiduguri, Borno State, yesterday, the COAS instructed soldiers not to only seize weapons, but also to neutralise the insurgents.

He said: “We’re looking forward to a fantastic entertaining moment together. I assure you that our troops remain resolute, especially the injured and the ones that have paid the supreme price.”

Yahaya pledged that the military would keep putting in the best in the fight against insurgency.

He, therefore, urged the troops to end the war that has claimed several lives and properties.

The COAS added: “There should be more determination, commitment and aggressiveness in ridding the country of terrorists and criminals.”

He charged the combatants to be merciless with hoodlums.

Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Isiaka Amao, said procurement of helicopter gunships and Tucano fighter jets had enhanced ongoing counter-terrorism operations in Sambisa Forest and the Lake Chad region.

He noted that synergy among the Armed Forces had also scaled up operations to end the war this year.

In his brief remarks, Governor Babagana Zulum, represented by his deputy, Usman Kadafur, reiterated that the state government would continuously support the military in restoring peace in the region and the country at large.

BESIDES, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), yesterday, said the Federal Government was not doing enough to improve human rights and interactions with civil society.

In a statement issued yesterday, by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, the group wants government officials to be “investigated for benefitting from the activities of unknown gunmen, hence they have grown from strength to strength.”

It frowned at Yahaya’s “Inability to boost interactions, interfaces and conversations between credible civil society organisations and the Department of Civil and Military Relations.”

The group claimed that authorities had “allowed professional misconduct and indiscipline to overwhelm the Armed Forces, with many of the soldiers on internal security operations involved in unjust, extrajudicial execution and systematic killing of innocent youths with no strong deterrence imposed by the service chiefs.”