The Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, has lamented that the judicial system, poor border management amongst other socio-economic challenges were frustrating the efforts by the military to end insecurity especially in the Northern part of the country.
General Musa stated this at the weekend in Zaria as the Guest Lecturer at a one-day dialogue organised by the Institute for Development Research and Training (IDR&T), Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria.
He said the security situation in the north is complex and characterised by multiple challenges undermining the efforts of the nation’s military’s readiness to effectively end insecurity in the country.
The CDS spoke on the topic ‘Assessing the Present Security Situation in Northern Nigeria’, saying the military in conduct of its operations had engaged itself in the kinetic and non-kinetic aspects in a bid to positively resolve its operations, disclosing that traditional use of force had been complemented with the non-traditional approaches such as civil-military relations and civil-military cooperation.
According to him, “Despite the successes achieved so far, several challenges still affect the Armed Forces’ efforts towards curbing the various security threats in the Northern part of Nigeria.
“These challenges include complexities of border management as well as the erroneous perception of security as a task only for uniformed personnel and a lack of patriotism. Others are low human capacity index and perception of lack of justice.
“Slow judicial process and a perception of lack of justice, fairness and equity amongst citizens within the country is also a major challenge. Although essentially contested, it is a multifaceted issue which has grown over time with delays in cases leading to frustration, disappointment and challenges in addressing systematic issues. For instance, the armed forces have thousands of apprehended terrorists and bandits whose cases are still not yet concluded in the courts,” he said.
