NAF, NSE, others partner to end insurgency

NAF, NSE, others partner to end insurgency

By Sola Ojo

In their bid to unanimously end insurgency and terrorism that have been disturbing the country for sometime now, Nigerian Airforce (NAF), Nigeria Society of Engineers (NSE) and other professional bodies have come together to see how the menace could nipped in the bud.

Commandant, Airforce Institute of Technology, Kaduna, Air Commodore Musibau Soladoye, stated this while fielding questions from newsmen shortly after the 2015 interactive session with professional bodies with the theme: ‘Overcoming insurgency in Nigeria: The role of professionals’, organised by Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE), Kaduna branch over the weekend in Kaduna.

He said, “on how far we have gone in intelligent gathering as regarding the ongoing operation, I think it speaks for itself. When you look at the successes been recorded by the Armed Forces of Nigeria, in the current fight against insurgency and terrorism in Northern Nigeria, you could see that we are making very good progress and the progress is solely base on the level of intelligence been gathered.

“Terrorists do not discriminate between combatant and non combatant. Whenever they discovered that the combatant is too strong for them, they target what we call soft target which is the civilian population. This why all of us have to change our attitude.

“All of us must agree that we have individual role to play in the ongoing fight against terrorism and insurgency. You can have a terrorist as your neighbor; you may have one or two pieces of information that could assist security agencies. Do not hesitate to divulge. The only way you can save yourself and others is to give out information that you have at hand. The era of people afraid of turning to first suspect after given security agents information is been taking care of long time ago. Nobody discloses sources of his information. Since the onset of the war against insurgency in Nigeria, we have not been revealing our sources of information. So, no one should be scared of given out information,” he said.

He further added, “I can say as a Military personnel that the government of this country is doing everything possible to end the insurgency and I don’t expect less. That is why you will see Mr. President moving up and down seeking for assistance so we end this insurgency.

“If I were you I will respect the leadership of this country and take what come from them. You are very lucky to have this kind of leadership you have now and like I said, I don’t expect anything more than what the government is currently doing”.

Earlier, Chairman, NSE, Kaduna council, Engineer James Upai, told the gathering that the choice of the theme was not unconnected to the security threat the country is currently faced with.

He hinted that the Nigerian engineers in the past five years have been doing a lot to improve the economy of the country in one capacity or the other, urging the government at all levels to implement the recommendations so far made by NSE, “we have chosen to talk on insurgency which is a very big problem in Nigeria. so as professionals, we have come to proffer solutions.

“For us as professional bodies, we will issue a communiqué and make it available to government for implementation. Ours is to suggest possible solutions and left for government to implement its recommendation. But we have a listening government now and hope we are getting there soon if all hands are on deck,” he opined.

Posted from GoBroadsheet