The Nigerian military says Thursday that is fully armed and prepared to deal with anyone or group with intend to disrupt the off season elections in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi States this weekend.
“The military is deployed in strength for the election to emplace a safe environment for voters to peacefully come out and cast their votes,” Major General Edward Buba the Director Defence Media Operations (DMO), assured.
“However, we are aware of plans of some to disguise in military gear to orchestrate havoc and disrupt elections in some areas.
“Our message to such a group is that there will be injurious consequences for such an action. The military will not fold it’s arms and watch it’s image dragged to the mud,” he warned.
DMO said the armed forces will continue to exert military pressure on groups that seek to derail any progress towards peace and security in the country and “there is no doubt that these groups must be defeated and are indeed being defeated.”
He pointed out that “it is for these reason we are inflicting severe damage on the terrorist, insurgents and violent extremist through our operations across the country.”
According to him, the military are targeting their leadership, infrastructure and foot soldiers.
He added that with the above objective in mind, in the past weeks “the coordination between the air and ground forces is like never seen before and yielding amazing results and achievements.”
“We are expecting new platforms that would further enhance our capabilities to further root out the terrorist and destroy their military capabilities.”
The Director said that the operations of the military in last one week, resulted in the neutralisation of 113 terrorists with 300 others arrested by ground forces. Several other terrorists estimated to be not less than a hundred were eliminated in air raids that targeted the residents of terrorists leaders within the week, as evidence in clips of Nigerian Air Force jets raids.
Besides the troops recovered 129 assorted weapons and 717 assorted ammunition. The breakdown as follows: one unserviceable AA gun, one RPG tube, 5 RPG bombs, one GT3 rifle, 54 AK47 rifles, 8 locally fabricated rifles, one locally made rifle, 2 pistols, 2 pump action guns, 2 dane guns, 4 locally fabricated pistol, 3 skeleton of AK47 rifles, 9 hand grenades, one unserviceable AK47 rifle, 14 magazines, 321 rounds of 7.62mm special ammo, 40 live cartridges.
Others are: 53 rounds of 5.45mm x 39mm ammo, 35 rounds of 7.62mm NATO, 100 rounds of short gun, 11 rifle body, 7 breech block, 7 rifle butts, 8 rifle muzzles, 9 piston assembles, 210 springs, one drilling machine, hand filling machines, 10 magazine purges, IED making materials, 4 boafeng radios, 15 motorcycles, 20 mobile phones and the sum of N348,200.00 amongst other items.
In the South South Zone, where troops fighting against economic saboteurs, 25 perpetrators of oil theft were arrested and 91 kidnapped hostages rescued.
The troops denied oil theft of the estimated sum of Five Hundred and Seventy One Million Seven Hundred and Ninety Three Thousand Three Hundred and Fifty Naira (N571,793,350.00) only.
In same vein within the last week,troops in the Niger Delta area discovered and destroyed 76 dugout pits, 35 boats, 95 storage tanks, 10 vehicles, 129 cooking ovens, 5 pumping machine, 13 speedboats, 6 outboard engine, one vessel, 3 motorcycles and 49 illegal refining sites. Troops recovered 514,640 litres of stolen crude oil, 339,315 litres of illegally refined AGO and 775 litres of DPK.
Major General Buba said that all the operations conducted by the troops were done within the ambit of laws governing human rights and that of armed conflict.