The presidency on Wednesday reviewed the ongoing military onslaught against the members of the Boko Haram sect and said the success being recorded by the military was because of certain factors.
Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, who spoke with journalists in Abuja, assured Nigerians that the war would soon be won.
He listed such factors like the deployment of specially trained anti-terrorism combat squad who were recently trained by Nigeria international partners, as one of them.
Others, according to him, were the acquisition and deployment of more sophisticated, adequate and appropriate Military hardware.
Okupe said, “There was a recent approval by the African Union and the United Nations for a broad based international coalition to collaborate with our Military.
“This approval also gives legal authority to our neighbours (Chad, Niger and Cameroon) to lawfully deploy troops on Nigerian soil while our Military can now operate beyond our borders to hunt fleeing terrorists; thus removing their safe haven.”
He added that it was the combination of these factors that make it realistic to hope that the terrorists’ fighting capabilities will soon be terribly decimated and severely degraded.
This, he added, would ensure a safer climate for both the general elections and overall resumption of civic activities in the areas affected by insurgency.
He also denied the insinuations that President Goodluck Jonathan underrated the members of the sect.
He said, “In the first instance, what President Goodluck Jonathan said in the interview which has been mischievously twisted by the APC was that at the outset of the Boko Haram activities, the group was treated as a local insurgent group in view of the fact that there was scanty information on its global network in training, funding and supply of arms.”
Okupe said the government was so desirous to end the war to the extent of being ready to “buy weapon from the black market.”
The presidential aide said it was however regrettable that the main opposition party, the All Progressives Congress, had been issuing statements which, he said, were not true concerning the war against the sect.
He added that the government had expected that the APC would drop this toga by unequivocally supporting government and our troops to defeat terror; especially now that it is hoping that Nigerians would entrust it with the leadership of our dear Nation, but he said this appear not to be so.
Rather, he said the opposition party continues to engage in bare-faced lies, double-speak and twisting of facts to stand logic on its head in these very crucial times.
He said, “An example of this disposition to falsehood and outlandish assertions by the APC is the claim by Alhaji Lai Muhammed in his press statement that government had expended a sum of 32 billion dollars (6.5 trillion Naira) on the war against terrorism; a claim which is untrue and lacks any factual basis whatsoever.
“We find it very embarrassing that the APC always desperately seeks to feed on blood like leaches and profit from National tragedies and misfortune.”
But when asked how much had been spent so far to combat the sect, he said he was not in the know. – Punch.
