By Fredrick Okopie

The recent upsurge of violence and crimes across the country, most especially the incessant bombings in some parts of the North by the Islamic sect, Boko Haram, was at the centre of this year’s Combat Support Arms, COSAT, Training week 2011.

The event which has as its theme: “Combat Support Arms and Contemporary Security Threats” was organised by the three arms of the Nigerian Army, namely: Nigerian Army Signals, Nigerian Army Artillery and Nigerian Army Engineers. COSAT 2011 was hosted by the Nigerian Army Signals.

The event saw representatives from other Armed Forces, the Police, Immigrations and other stakeholders in the security and communications matters in attendance.

Addressing the military and civil audience, the guest speaker and the host commander, Lieutenant General Onyeabor Ihejirika and Major General OAC Ariahu, spoke extensively on security matters bothering the country and the Nigerian Army, with special emphasis on solders in the Lagos metropolis.

Lt. Gen. Ihejirika told journalists that the Nigerian Army was working tirelessly to checkmate the excesses and the incessant bombings by the Boko Haram in some Northern states in the country, expecially in Borno State.

He said: “The Nigerian Army is working with other security services and the intelligence community to deal with the situation and part of the operation includes cordon, search and arrest of the culprits who are involved in this terrorist menace”.

However, Gen. Ihejirika declined to be specific on the exact number of the sect members killed or arrested by the Joint Military Task Force, JTF, in their recent operations in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital.

“I cannot give you a figure but I can assure you that a number of them have been picked up both in Borno State and outside based on intelligence and they are currently being interrogated leading to even more arrests. So the operation is on-going and I believe that in no distant time, we will begin to appreciate the result,” he said.

When asked how soon the JTF can bring the violence being perpetrated by the Boko Haram under control, the COAS said a lot of factors needed to be considered before crime can wiped out completely.

“It is difficult to predict but what I can say is that the violence level will reduce drastically and it would take quite some time because a lot of factors are involved in bringing a menace of this magnitude to an end.

Until we eradicate illiteracy, create serious public awareness and all sectors begin to do what they ought to do as well as stop the drastic increase in arms proliferation, then you can now talk about eradicating crime completely,” he intoned.

On the internal indiscipline rocking the force, Gen. Ihejirika said he had set up an operation ‘know your soldiers in Lagos’, adding this will enable the commanders in Lagos to know the number of soldiers in their commands and know their movement.

He said this will help avert the kind of incident that led to the Army and Police face-off in Badagry and claimed the lives of two police officers and a soldier.

Lagos is a cosmopolitan city and I have been a GOC here and it’s also the commercial nerve center. So the possibility of illegal action is there because of its commercial nature.

This operation ‘know your soldiers’ is very important because I want every commander at every time to know his soldiers and their whereabouts. It’s important for security, it’s important for the commander control his soldiers and instil discipline, he said.