Why there is now a spate of Boko Haram suicide bombings — Chief of Defence Staff, Olonisakin explains

The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Gen. Abayomi Olonisakin has traced the recent bombing of soft targets by the Boko Haram terrorists to the persistent increased attacks on them by the troops in the North-East.

Olonisakin made this assertion in Abuja, Thursday, at the 2015 Nigerian Navy Research and Development seminar, with the theme: “Innovation and Research and Development (R&D): Turning Bright Ideas to Operational Solutions.”

He said: “The issue of suicide bombings that we have been witnessing is as a result of the pressure on the Boko Haram terrorists in the North East. They are now aiming at the soft targets. Nigerians must be security conscious and report any suspicious movement around them, because security is everybody’s business.

“The pressure has been on them and they are fanning out, so, in the process of fanning out they are hitting the soft target, but we must be wary and be security conscious, report any area where you observe suspicious movement or activities in your area.”

The CDS who dismissed reports that some of the Chibok Girls had been liberated said the military is working hard to bring them and other captives back home as soon as practicable.

“We are to ensure that everyone that have been probably adopted or even conscripted by the Boko Haram terrorists that we bring them to safety including the Chibok girls, so, that is our desire and that is what we are working towards,” he said.

Speaking further, the CDS explained that the military is working to come up with a strategy to effectively tackle vandalism, illegal bunkering and every issue associated with oil and gas as it plans to take over the security of the sector.

He also disclosed that the military has not taken over the policing of the pipelines nationwide especially in the Niger-Delta region.

Earlier in his welcome address, the Chief of Naval Staff (CNS), Vice Admiral Ibok Ibas said though the Nigerian Navy Directorate of Research and Development was established in 2004 with the aim of addressing the immediate problems associated with service’s operational, logistics and technology acquisition, but noted that it has not been able to live up to the expectation.

He explained that the recurring issue of sustainability of the fleet stood imposingly and staunchly to dispel many doubt on this, stressing that the reasons for this poor outing include but not limited to poor resource availability, inadequate coordination of R&D activities in the Navy.

The Naval Chief explained further that the seminar was one of the approaches the navy adopted to assist the R&D bring out the desired result.

According to him, “the past efforts of these initiatives have already triggered appropriate R&D activities in some development objectives contained within the extant Revised Nigerian Navy Transformation plan 2011-2020.”