As part of efforts to boost the morale of the forces, the CDS disclosed that starting this year, the annual Armed Forces Remembrance Day shall be changed to Armed Forces Celebration and Remembrance Day in order to reward the gallantry of existing combatants.
The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Christopher Musa has attributed the delay in winning the war against terrorism to the absence of good governance at the sub-national levels.
He said the armed forces’ efforts must be complemented by good governance at the federal, state, and local government levels.
He also revealed that the armed forces is mainstreaming welfare packages to motivate the combatants.
In that regard, he said there is a proposal to change the annual Armed Forces Remembrance Day to Armed Forces Celebration and Remembrance Day.
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He said the name change is informed by the objective “of celebrating both the dead and the living.”
According to him, “this year’s event of Armed Forces Day entails celebrating those combatants on active duty, families of the deceased and the dead officers.”
Speaking this morning on Arise TV’s The Morning Show, General Musa said a situation where some Nigerians live in conditions that make it seem like they are not part of an organised modern society makes them vulnerable to the manipulation of those that come to recruit them into violent crimes like terrorism, banditry, and kidnapping.
The CDS therefore, calls on leaders at the sub-national levels to up their games to make it sync with governance efforts at the federal level.
“So when you go and see people living in a manner as if they are not part of an organised modern society, they will be open to other interests to manipulate,” he said.
Another factor, he said had made the war to linger is the access of the terrorists to foreign funding.
He said the Nigerian armed forces had found a cache of foreign currencies on some of the arrested terrorists.
In a bid to eliminate this causative factor, he said the armed forces are collaborating with relevant government agencies to track the source of these funds.
“So, that’s the oxygen we want to cut off,” the CDS disclosed.
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General Musa also cited “the nature of the enemy the army is dealing with” as another reason why the war on terror has lingered. According to him, the enemy appears like every normal citizen.
He explained that this was the reason the army adopted “the non-kinetic approach that is based on the understanding that the war can not be fought by the armed forces alone but by all citizens and other stakeholders.”
“Also, there are saboteurs who provide support for the non-state actors just to make it seem as though Nigeria is ungovernable.”
General Musa disclosed that it was based on these discoveries that the country is working closely with countries in the Sahel to fortify the international boundaries.
He said the window was still open on the possibility of convincing the three member countries that recently left the ECOWAS to reconsider their stance.
