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Sola Ojo, Kaduna
Chief of Army Staff (CoAS), Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai on Wednesday told soldiers to deal decisively with bandits and terrorists saying they were well trained and armed to make that happen.
The Army boss, who gave the charge at Jaji Military Cantonment, Kaduna at the graduation of 1,142 soldiers from special forces training at Nigerian Army School of Infantry (NASI) said, the training which was designed to strengthen the fight against insurgency in the North Eastern Nigeria and banditry in North West was the second in its aeries.
COAS told the soldiers that, they must put in their best and make use of the training they acquired when deployed to various units in the North East and North West to tackling insurgency, banditry and other forms of criminal activities.
“You must go out there to defeat the criminals. They (criminals) don’t have the training we have. They don’t have the weapons we have.
“I must commend the commandant of NASI and Starter Point Integrated Service Limited who had partnered the Nigerin Army in training you on counter terrorism, anti-banditry amongst other trainings.
“You may also find your selves doing covert and overt operations, but more of covert, the training would be sustained till the desired results are achieved.
“We want you to be the hope that will finally get the criminals on their Knees, battle field is now intelligence and initiative to determine the right time to strike.
“As you are being trained together, you will work together on one unit but grouped into platoons and companies in the field to continue with the Esprit de Corp and cohesion required to fight and defeat the adversaries.” Buratai said.
Buratai, who reiterated commitment to welfare of soldiers to boosts their morale, ordered immediate promotion of the 1,142 soldiers, most of whom are in the rank of ‘Private’, to their next ranks.
Earlier, the Commandant of NASI, Maj-Gen Kelvin Aligbe, clarified that, the graduands were of the second batch of special forces being trained on rigorous activities for fight against insurgency and anti-banditry saying, the training covered aspects of close contact combat, camouflage, unexpected incident operations and extraction under fire.
