The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Christopher Musa, has said the use of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) by insurgents and the activities of informants are the greatest challenges in the war against insurgency.
General Musa stated this on Tuesday in his remarks at the opening ceremony of a 2-day security and justice symposium organized by Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) in collaboration with the British High Commission at National Counter Terrorism Centre with the theme:
”Securing Peace, Ensuring Justice, Protection, Conduct and Accountability” in Abuja.
The CDS however, said the military is working hard in collaboration with other law enforcement agencies to find solutions to the challenges.
He noted that for fight against insecurity in other parts of the country to succeed like in the North East, sources of logistics and financial support must be blocked in a creative manner.
He said: “For us in the armed forces the challenges we are facing are Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). They are our biggest challenge since the inception of counter terrorism operations.
“We are looking at how to handle them because you have to be creative. To fight insurgency you have to be creative and innovative everyday because the insurgents are not relenting.
“Another issue is that of informants. We have to look for ways to tackle the issue. Those supporting the terrorists by given them logistics because those are the people giving them ‘oxygen’. Those giving them funding, we have to look for the oxygen and block it.
“As theatre Commander in the North East we found out that if you are able to deny them these logistics , these oxygen they will not survive. We did that and that is why you see that more than 200, 000 of them have surrendered.
“If we replicate that all over we will have a very good result.”
The Defence chief also emphasised the importance of good governance in the fight against insecurity.
He noted that there would not be peace if there is no fairness equity and justice in the society.
“Nigeria is going through a lot of challenges and if we are able to address them and everybody has a sense of belonging the security challenges will reduce significantly.
“I want to thank the national security adviser for the support he has given us both in the kinetic and non-kinetic operations.
“Like I have always said, the kinetic aspect of the war is only 30 percent. The non-kinetic operations has a lot of role to play because when you have democracy people expect the dividends of democracy.
“When you tell people to be peaceful and they are hungry, their children can’t eat they create more problems,” he said.
In his keynote address, the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice John Tsoho, charged security agencies to uphold human rights in the fight against insecurity.
Represented by Justice Binta Nyako, he urged security agencies to work hard and earned the confidence of the people so as to get information from them.
He said, “The different scenarios of war crimes and accountability need to be taken into considerations.
“We are talking about crimes within the operatives. Recently there have been hype about crimes being committed in the cause of fighting or securing peace.
“It’s important to emphasize accountability because you need to have the confidence of the people for them to be good informants to you.
“This insurgents live among us and I don’t comprehend how a large number people converge, move on bikes and carry out attacks and people don’t know about it.
” If you have good informants mechanism within the populace as a result of the confidence that the people have on security agencies it would go a long way to help.”