The director of defence media operations, Maj Gen Edward Buba said the military identified the enclave of violent extremists, 50 of them and rescued 49 hostages within one week.
Buba who disclosed this in a statement yesterday said the military was constantly restrategising and modifying its operations to overcome the changes in tactics of extremists operating across the country.
He said the extremists’ hideout saved as a support base for the flow of funding, materials, weapons, fighters, command and control to fuel terrorism and insurgency.
“Accordingly, the ongoing counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency operations are designed to ensure that uncertainty is replaced with certainty.
“Among the central issues on the ground, in terms of setting security conditions and overcoming instability, are the safe havens of some of these violent extremist groups that have existed for many years.”
“There are safe havens spread across various theatres, from…the North East to other locations such as national parks, game reserves and forests across the country. The military has identified several of these safe havens, and operations are targeted towards ensuring that they are completely dismantled. Recently, one of the safe havens in Aku Forest in Okigwe, Imo State, in the South East was invaded. Troops found unspeakable and unprintable activities going on in the camp.
“These extremists are cannibals feasting on fellow humans and slaughtering them for other devilish acts. The operations of the last one week resulted in 50 neutralised terrorists, while 114 of them were arrested,” he added.
He assured that the military will continue to fine-tune its operations to ensure maximum protection of citizens and restore security across the country/
Buba added that the military will continue to encourage citizens to say something if they know something “so that we can do something about it” and “together, we win the fight.”
