The lawmakers had earlier called on President Muhammadu Buhari to prevail on the army not to embark on the exercise by which Nigerians are required to move about with means of identification.
But the Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-General Tukur Buratai, yesterday told the lawmakers that Buhari and the Minister of Defence, Bashir Magashi, were in support of the operation. He said first launched in the northeast in September, would be conducted nationwide to intercept Boko Haram insurgents who had relocated from their enclaves to other parts of the country. Buratai, represented by the Head of Civil-Military Affairs, Army Headquarters, Major-General U.S Usman, noted that the exercise would not involve movement of troops or their presence in communities. Rather, he emphasised, it is a special operation fused into ongoing operations. He repeated that the operation did not involve mounting of checkpoints or military incursions into communities.
According to him, it is an intelligence-based operation to intercept insurgents and other criminal elements relocating from the army’s theatres of operations to other parts of the country. He said the precarious situation of the nation prompted the army to initiate various operations to tackle the security challenges facing the country.
He said soldiers had been deployed to 34 states of the federation owing to the spate of insurgency, banditry, kidnapping and other crimes. He noted that the army does not operate in isolation, but always works with other security agencies in its operations. According to him, if the army arrests criminals, it hands them over to the police except for insurgents detained and profiled by the army depending on the situation.
The committee chairman, Abdulrazak Namdaz, said the House was concerned with the issue of identification during the operations which, he said, was not in the purview of the army but should have been left for the police, the Nigerian Immigration Service and other security agencies. “It cannot take effect from tomorrow (today).
We have actually told them that this thing requires sensitisation, will require a lot of media work, press conferences and Nigerians need to be fully informed; we will talk to relevant authorities to see that this thing is shifted in terms of identification,” he said. A member of the committee, Ahmed Jaha, said though the need for the operation was understandable, its concept and approach should be adjusted since it was being extended to other areas outside the main theatres of operations.
Responding to questions from the lawmakers, Mohammed admitted that the operation would be conducted nationwide. He said cordons, searches and raids would be done at specific areas where intelligence indicated that there were suspects. He also said President Muhammadu Buhari was aware of the operation.
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