MILITARY INTENSIFIES EXCERCISE IN READINESS TO ATTACK NIGER DELTA MILITANTS

Prospects of a confrontation between Niger Delta militants and the military heightened yesterday as the Nigerian Army announced that its Special Forces had started exercises in preparation for combat in the restive oil rich region.

The Army in a statement by its Director of Public Relations (DAPR), Col. Sani Usman, said it had started conducting exercises for its Special Forces on maritime warfare. “The Nigerian Army will from this weekend commence another training exercise code named ‘Exercise Crocodile Smile’ in 82 Division and part of 2 Division areas of responsibility traversing the South-south geo-political region,” he said.

But Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson wednesday met with President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja and said force was not the solution to the problem that had massively constrained the country’s crude oil production output.

The Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt-Gen. Tukur Buratai, had warned last week that if the militants failed to accept the federal government’s offer of dialogue over their grievances, the military would have to step in to protect the nation’s oil and gas assets that had been the target of a militant group, Niger Delta Avengers’ (NDA) consistent acts of sabotage.

The federal government’s strategy for dialogue would appear to be experiencing some hiccups as the main militant group, the Avengers, has consistently expressed reservations about the sincerity of the process even as some other stakeholders query the government’s option of using proxy for the proposed talks.

Obviously not wanting to be caught unawares, the Nigerian Army has started preparing for a possible confrontation with the militants, conducting exercises for its Special Forces on maritime warfare.

Usman wednesday said: “The aim of the exercise is to practise our Special Forces and other units of the Nigerian Army in Amphibious and Internal Security Operations in riverine environment and also check criminal activities like kidnapping, militancy and piracy and other forms of criminal activities in support of the civil authority.”

He urged members of the public “not to panic on the sight of unusual movement of large number of troops, heavy military weapons and equipment in these areas”.

As part of the military’s preparation, its Joint Task Force in the Niger Delta, Operation Delta Safe, also warned the militants not take it for granted, saying it had the capacity to crush them.

Rear Admiral Joseph Okojie, the new Commander of the outfit covering Delta, Rivers, Bayelsa, parts of Ondo and Akwa Ibom States, described the crisis in the region as a fifth generation security threat, but stressed that Nigerians would soon begin to see the results from the efforts by the forces to tackle the violent agitators.

Okojie, who spoke with journalists in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, where the JTF, ODS is headquartered, assured Nigerians that the military had total control of the security infrastructure in the country, but added that the military remained subservient to the political leadership of the country.

He noted that the federal government, the minister of defence, the chief of defence staff and all the service chiefs were fully involved in the current operations to rout all criminalities in the oil-rich region.

“The ODS will not shirk its responsibility of securing the Niger Delta. We will ensure that there is sanctity of our territorial integrity, but we have to make sure that collateral damage is minimised.

“We are on top of the security manifestations and at the appropriate time, if necessary, action will be taken to ensure there is peace.

“If there is need to up the tempo, we will do it, but for now (our operations) are driven by the political imperatives of our leaders. The political leadership has come out with clear instructions while we also carry out our core duty,” he said.

Flanked by his lieutenants in charge of land operations, maritime and civil military operations, Okojie explained that in the last few weeks, his men had successfully foiled cases of pipeline vandalism, kidnapping, illegal oil refining, piracy and other criminalities in the region.

“These are complex operations, but we are trained for that and very soon everyone will begin to see the results,” he said.

He added: “We are quite capable of enforcing our mandate. This is a fifth generation warfare. Not everyone there is a criminal. It is complex and you must consider innocent people. Every situation demands its own solution. We wouldn’t want to hear complaints that people are being killed.”

He urged the media to be objective and professional in reporting the security challenges in the region, saying that the military would continue to keep its mandate of providing a safe environment for economic prosperity.

According to Okojie, “We have seen reports emanating from faceless sources that tend to compromise national security in the mainstream media and want to restate our commitment to the mandate given to Operation Delta Safe.

“Our mandate does not include engagement in propaganda with any interest and wish to restate that the territorial integrity of our country is sacrosanct.
“We implore the media to rise to the occasion and subject their security related stories to the dictates of their professional ethics.”