By AGATHA NWOKOCHA, Abuja
The authorities of the Nigerian Armed Forces have said a plot to hijack the planned nationwide hardship protest by unscrupulous elements to unleash violence has been uncovered.
The armed forces made this revelation on Thursday in Abuja.
“Pertaining the planned nationwide protest, there are essentially several factors to be thoroughly examined.
“Given the situation, there are already indicators that, unscrupulous elements are bent on hijacking the planned protest for violent purposes”, said the Director of Defence Media Operations DMO, Major General Edward Buba.
Speaking while briefing the media on the ongoing military operations at the various theaters of operations across the country, Buba cautioned, “while citizens have a constitutional right to peaceful protest, they do not have a right to mobilise for anarchy in order to unleash terror”.
He stated that the military would not tolerate any form of violence and anarchy.
“Based on the foregoing, the level of violence envisaged is best described as a state of anarchy.
“It is for this reason the armed forces will not watch and allow the nation spiral out of control to such low levels”, the DMO Director declared.
On troops’ activities in past two weeks, Buba said military operations are focused on targeting the centre of gravity of terrorist and their cohorts across the country.
He said further, “Accordingly, we are finding them, flushing them out and dismantling their military, administrative and logistics capabilities across the various theaters.
“The operations are going in an upward trajectory, even as we prioritised targeting the terrorist leaders, commanders, foot soldiers as well as their collaborators.
“Many of these categories of terrorist have been eliminated from the battlefield and we are after the others”.
On crude oil facilities vandalism in the Niger Delta area, he reiterated that troops continue to battled perpetrators of crude oil theft.
“In battling the perpetrators of crude oil theft. We have established a unified command structure for security operating in the region.
“Additionally, we are examining other areas such as: transparency of IOCs, credible metering of oil wells and the tracking of point of loading to destination of the crude oil.
“We are also galvanizing the support of host communities as well as stakeholders in the oil sector. Troops are also reinforcing surveillance efforts on vessels, terminals and oil infrastructures to include jackets, that house well heads.
“Most importantly, troops are monitoring to ensure that culprits are prosecuted by the prosecuting agencies”.
