*Seeks communities’ support to defeat terrorists, other emerging crimes

Linus Aleke in Abuja

The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Christopher Musa, yesterday said the 16 years of counter-insurgency, counter-terrorism operations, and anti-banditry war have enabled the military to build local capacity in manufacturing military armaments.

He also revealed that military engineers and mechanics can now pick up completely burnt Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle (MRAP), fix it, and put it back into use.

Musa, who spoke during an interview monitored on a national television further noted that in a few years, Nigeria would be a super-power in producing military hardware.
According to him, “What this 16 years war has done for us is that it has enabled us to build the capacity of our engineers and mechanics.

“Now we can pick up completely burnt Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle (MRAP), fix it and put it back into warfare.
“MRAP and APCs are been manufactured locally by Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON), and Nigerian companies like Proforce, etc.

“Nigerian Army also has its own repair company which fixes APCs. We got gun-trucks, converted them to APCs, tested them and they are working.”
He stressed that the signing of the DICON Act last year by President Bola Tinubu, “has offered us an opportunity to partner with original manufacturers all over the world for them to come and produce here.”
Musa added: “Now we are producing our own weapons, MRAP and APC and that will make a good difference.”
He, however regretted the recent killing of civilians in Zamfara and Sokoto by secondary explosion arising from military airstrikes, stressing that the military was continuously building the capacity of its commanders and troops to minimize civilian casualties during operations.

Musa however stressed that any citizen providing logistics support to terrorists was a legitimate target.
The Defence Chief also threatened legal action against international organisations for accusing the Nigerian military of carrying out forced abortion.
His words: “We have appealed to the Attorney General of the Federation & Minister of Justice, that we must take this case to court.

“Since they maligned us falsely let us take them to court, let them publicly apologise that they were wrong.
“Most of these organisations don’t mean well for us. Whenever we are making progress, they throw allegations at us to make us look bad and to demoralise our troops.

“And the question is what is their intent? Are they not happy that we are succeeding?
“When that incident happened, I met the then Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Lucky Irabor Rtd and requested that the allegations be investigated because I was dead sure that nothing like that happened. I was then a theatre commander in North-east operational theatre.”

A report by a human rights group had found no evidence that the military secretly carried out thousands of illegal abortions as part of its fight against Islamist insurgency as alleged by Reuters.in 2022.
Speaking further, in answering question on why terrorism has continued to linger in Nigeria, General Musa pointed out that terrorism was a difficult thing to eradicate.

He said the terror war was also an ideological war “and that is why it has continued to linger.”
“To the military, a terrorist is a terrorist and an enemy of the State, but to the mother and relations, a terrorist is a son and a brother and you know that blood is thicker than water.

“These terrorists live amongst the people, and it is the people that provide supplies to them.
“Sometimes we provide food for communities as part of our non-kinetic approach and sometimes it may end up in the hands of terrorists because their mothers and brothers could take the food to them.”
He called for the support of the communities to hasten the defeat of terrorists and other emerging crimes in Nigeria.

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