Military, paramilitary strategise against insurgents

The Nigerian military yesterday met with its paramilitary counterparts and the media to device more techniques of overcoming the threats of insurgents in North in its bid to return the country back to its state of peace.
Commandant, Armed Forces College and Studies Command (AFCSC), Air vice Marshal John Chris Ifemeji, disclosed this yesterday while declaring open an exercise tagged “Haske Biyu 2014” at the Jaji Military Cantonment in Kaduna.
Ifemeji said the exercise was designed to forge a durable relationship amongst all the stakeholders and to identify workable strategies and operational concepts towards improving the security of nation, particularly with regards to the menace of Boko Haram insurgents.

He said: “It will provide a platform for the cross fertilisation of ideas thereby allowing all stake holders of the national security architecture to cooperate and collaborate for the development of sustainable crisis/conflict resolution and management mechanisms.”
Director Department of Joint Studies, Brigadier General Benjamin Ahanotu, said in his welcome address that the exercise was borne out of the need to tackle the security threats in the country with a multi-agency approach.

“The exercise scenario is tailored towards the current security challenges so that it will enable you understand the nature of conflicts, the actors at the play, their methods of operation, challenges faced by security agencies and peculiar operational procedures.
“Understanding these will enhance cooperation and inter-operability in the conduct of joint and multi-agency internal security operations and enable us to plan for the full range of contingencies against threats that we are currently facing and those we may face in the future.”

Meanwhile, the four-week exercise Haske biyu 2014 has a total of 249 participants with 149 as military, while the remaining 100 were drawn from the paramilitary which included Nigerian prisons, customs, immigration, civil defence, road safety and the media.