The Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Lucky Irabor, has stated that the security challenges rocking Nigeria will soon be a thing of the past.
Naija News reports that the CDS stated this on Sunday while speaking during a church service to mark this years’ Armed Forces Remembrance Day.
While admitting that Insecurity is still a challenge, Irabor claimed that the present level is better than what was obtained in the past.
According to him, the security threats facing the country would soon become history.
He said, “I would like to specially commend members of the armed forces, especially the veterans who laid the foundation on which we are building upon to bring peace and security to every part of the country.
“There are challenges but the challenges are not as much as where we started from. That gives hope for everyone as we go into the year.
“There is ample opportunity to escalate the actions that brought the peace that we now enjoy and also to take it to another level where there would be no need for anyone to live in fear in any part of the country.”
Meanwhile, the Nigerian Army has debunked a report claiming some soldiers in Katsina State killed some illegal miners over disagreement on money to be paid as bribe to them.
The Army also denied that there was any form of altercation between its troops and the illegal miners in Magama village on 5 January 2022.
The Director Army Public Relations, Brigadier General Onyema Nwachukwu who made the denial in a statement on Sunday added that the soldiers deployed to the North East are not involved in mining activities as their focus is to crush bandits, terrorists, and other criminals in the region.
He, therefore, urged members of the public to disregard the report as fake news which is capable of demoralizing the troops.
Naija News reports the statement by Nwachukwu comes as a reaction to publication by an online news medium which claimed that 2 soldiers and 7 illegal miners were killed during a gun duel, arising from a disagreement over gold nuggets in Magama village in Jibia LGA of Katsina State.
The platform claimed that the incident occurred when the soldiers turned down an initially agreed offer of 500,000 naira per pit from the miners, but afterwards, turned around to demand more money on discovering the large quantum of gold nuggets found by the illegal miners in one of the pits.
The Nigerian Army in its reaction however refuted the claims, rather submitting that the “story is baseless, unfounded, untrue and a mere figment of the writer’s imagination, aimed at tarnishing the reputation of the Nigerian Army, as no Nigerian soldier was killed, nor involved in any skirmish with illegal miners in Magama village on 5 January 2022.”
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