Nigeria Army has resumed local productions of arms and ammunitions, following the revival of the operations of the Defence Industry Corporation ( DIC) in Kaduna
This is just as the Army has trained no fewer than 190 repentant Boko Haram insurgents who laid down their arms voluntarily, under the county’s de-radicalization program.
The Director of Defence Information, John Agim, a Brigadier General , disclosed this to newsmen in Abuja at the weekend saying that the Army is rebuilding local capabilities to produce ammunitions about
He disclosed that the first batch of such ammunitions were chinned out two week ago, adding that ” If we are able to sustain that , l think things will improve”
A special unit known as ” Operations Safe Corridor” carry out the training, empowerment and reintegrated of the former insurgents back to the society by the Army as part of efforts at de-radicalizing repentant Boko Haram insurgents in the country
According to him, ” They were discharged after having been trained under our “Operation safe Corridor” and reintegrated back into the society
Agim who disclosed that the de-radicalization is an ongoing process, adding that program will continue to provides opportunities for insurgents who want to lay down their arms to do
The Defence Spokesman called for cooperation and synergy between the Media and the Military so that stories don’t give the Boko Haram an edge over the army.
” The only way we can keep them in check is to down play their activities in the reportage of the events in the Media” adding that “Reports must be done to avoid panic in the civil society”
On human rights abuses in the Military, Agim said top Military hierarchy frown at human rights abuses because of its implications for the image of the military and its operational capabilities
” It is fir this reason that we have is a Court Marshall in place to try and sentence convicted soldiers. We don’t tolerate it at all”
” Amnesty International don’t give us information that would allow us Court Marshall erring members of the Military”
Also speaking on its operations in the North Central, said It is difficult for us to easily identify non- Nigerians ” If I see a non- Nigerian l will not know them”
” The country don’t check those who come in or go out. It is only in this place that people have such free movement. Go to countries like Niger, Botswana and Chad, people monitor who comes in and who goes out”
He also blamed the difficulties in tackling the killing of innocent farmers in the region on the large quantity of small and light weapons in the hands of criminal elements
He revealed that it is currently impossible to permanently keep it men in conquered territories due to manpower shortage
” Sambisa forest is ten times the size of Lagos, but what I can assure you is that there is no local government under the control of Boko Haram”
He however noted that Boko Haram were embarking on massive recruited into their camp because according to him” they control so much money”
” There were situations were we recovered as much as N2m in the pocket of one Boko Haram member who was killed”
He warned that the insurgents have a ploy to cause religious war in the country. ” These insurgents are very intelligent, they have grand plans to make us fight ourselves”
“There is no division within the military. The Military don’t recruit people according to where we come from ” adding that ” We distance ourselves from politics because we have a country to protect”
Onyinye Nwachukwu and Tony Ailemen, Abuja
