LOCAL RESIDENTS SABOTAGE MILITARY OPERATIONS AGAINST BOKO HARAM- DEFENCE HEADQUARTERS
The Nigeria Military on Monday said some local residents sabotage security operatives' efforts to combat insurgency in the Northeast region.
The Coordinator of Defence Media Operations, John Enenche stated this on Channels Television while addressing the insecurity in the region in the wake of the massacre of at least 43 rice farmers in Zabarmari, Borno State on Saturday, November 28.
General Enenche said the locals most times keep important Intel away from the military. He, however, added that the military is working to build better trust with the locals.
Below are excerpts from the interview with General Enenche:
“It’s a concern to us. You need a guide, you need information. Will they tell us? That’s a question that we have to ask. Yes, sometimes. And most times, no. And that was one of the issues we have been ensuring to overcome, with civil-military cooperation activities, reaching out to them, even sending people by proxy to talk to them.
“Those are the things that have been one of the banes of the final success in the whole of this operation.
“Our patrols will pass through a route, in a village. By the time you are going, some people are looking at you. When you are coming back, the next thing is that you meet an IED planted on the road. And people saw them, they won’t tell you. So that’s the area I think we are all working together as stakeholders.
“And it is not possible to force information out of people. It’s not possible, just like they say you force a horse to the river, but not to drink water. So all we are trying to do is to build up their confidence in the system and encourage them that look, this is not good for you. Now they do not expect that this will happen, even those ones that they deceived, that they are preaching to them.”
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