New Terror Group: Acting Army Chief Visits Sokoto
…begs Sokoto residents for support
..ACF Seeks Urgent Action To Crush New Terror Group
Acting Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Olufemi Oluyede, has urged the people of Sokoto State to support the ongoing drive to secure the country against foreign armed group locally known as Lakurawa.
General Oluyede, who was on operational visit, said his mission in the state was to assess the operational readiness of the troops.
“I am here to see my troops, assess their operational readiness and charge them to continue doing what they are doing to secure this country,” he said.
The COAS, who visited Tangaza Local Government Area, one of the perceived flashpoints of Lakurawa, also met with the community leaders, including the council Chairman, Alhaji Isa Salihu Kalenjeni, seeking their support.
“We need your support. If you don’t support us, we will not succeed and if we don’t succeed Nigeria will not be secured.
“There will always be challenges but what is important is how we handle them. I assure you the Nigerian Army will not relent in their effort to secure our country,” he said.
General Oluyede, whose aircraft landed around 9:30am, visited Masallaci, a community in Tangaza local government which is 25 kilometers to Niger Republic.
At the soldiers formation in the community, he was briefed by the theatre commanders, including the General Officer Commanding 8 Division as well as Garrison Commander.
Similarly, the Army Chief visited Illela border community, where he was equally briefed by the theater Commanders after which he solicited the support of the community members.
ACF Seeks Urgent Action To Crush New Terror Group In Sokoto, Kebbi
The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has called for urgent action by the Nigerian military to subjugate and decapitate the Lakurawa terror group that is terrorising residents of Sokoto and Kebbi states in the North West Zone with all the human and material arsenals at their disposal, without hesitation.
ACF considered the emergence of the new terrorist group as very dangerous and alarming, as it indicates an escalation in the devastating state of insecurity in the North-West, which has become Nigeria’s epicentre of terrorism.
In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Professor Tukur Muhammad -Baba, the Forum noted that the emergence of the Lakurawa terror gang in the North-West Zone raises serious concerns and has furthers grave challenge to national security interests.
It therefore, warned that the group should not be towed with in any form or be tolerated or allowed to entrench itself or embedded in communities through benign neglect and/or kid-glove treatment, as was the case with Boko Haram insurgency, farmer-herder clashes and banditry in the Northeast, Northcentral and Northwest areas, respectively.
Furthermore, ACF urges an immediate, comprehensive and thorough re-appraisal of strategies and tactics such as to leave no one in doubt about the national resolve to deal decisively with any threats to the nation’s peace and stability as may be contemplated by terror groups of whatever forms or descriptions.
According to ACF, the emergence of the Lakurawa terror group brings into sharp focus a need for the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MJTF) arrangement with neighbours to be reinvigorated and reinforced, noting that the Niger Republic must be persuaded to return to participate in the endeavour.
“The visit to the Niger Republic earlier in the year by Nigeria’s Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Christopher Musa, should be utilised as a fulcrum for renewed cross-border international efforts to deal with terrorists,” the statement read.
“The Federal Government, state and local authorities should also leverage on the close complex historic socio-cultural, economic and political ties with Nigeria’s neighbours with which to confront the mutual existential security threats that terror groups pose to all.
ACF further called for the Intensification of intelligence gathering, processing, storage, retrieval, deployment and utilisation; while also urging security agencies to pay attention to the possible involvement of local informants in communities with a view to fishing out the culprits for possible arrest and prosecution.
The statement further called for a greater and more effective and efficient inter-agency collaboration among National Security Agencies under the coordination of the Office of the National Security Advisor.
