By Gbemiga Olamikan.
Military operations in the last one week has recorded a tremendous success which resulted to neutralizing 37 terrorists while 95 of them were arrested. Troops also arrested 19 perpetrators of oil theft and rescued 53 kidnapped hostages as troops denied oil theft of the estimated sum of Three Billion, Three Hundred and Ninety-Nine Million, Twenty-Nine Thousand, Eight Hundred and Fifty Naira (N3,399,029,850.00) only in the South South geo-political zone,
This was disclosed by Major General Edward Buba, Director Defence Media Operations in a statement signed on 20th Oct. 2023 in Abuja.
Gen. Buba revealed that troops recovered 100 assorted weapons and 1,207 assorted ammunition which includes 45 AK47 rifles, 11 locally fabricated AK47 rifles, 6 pump action guns, 12 dane guns, 2 AK47 rifles loaded with 34 rounds of 7.62mm special ammo, 2 locally made guns, 2 locally fabricated pistols, 2 locally made revolvers.
Others are; 925 rounds of 7.62mm special ammo, 28 rounds of 9mm ammo, 157 live cartridges, 23 magazines, 27 vehicles, 25 motorcycles, 38 mobile phones, 2 HH radios, 2 boafeng radios, 4 bicycles and one tricycle amongst others.
Furthermore, Gen Buba disclosed that Troops in the Niger Delta area discovered and destroyed 42 dugout pits, 82 boats, 143 storage tanks, 234 cooking ovens, 56 illegal refining sites, 61 hoses, 17 drums, one pumping machine, 2 outboard engines and one vessel.
In the operation, troops also recovered 6,009,500 liters of stolen crude oil, 425,715 liters of illegally refined AGO, 38,100 liters of DPK and 4,500 liters of PMS.
However, General Buba assures that “military operations have killed or captured several terrorist and insurgent leaders as well as their facilitators and key associates. He noted that “the military is in a good fight and is winning in this war as the insurgents and terrorist are in perpetual mourning as they constantly bury their dead and would continue to do so”. He said “Our communities across the country have risen to the occasion in exposing these elements and it is making a tremendous impact on operations as they no longer have a hiding place. He therefore charges Nigerians to “know something, say something, so we can do something”.
