Nigerian soldiers deserve accolades in fight against insurgency - Omipidan

Omipidan said this at the International Peace Confab/Knight at the World Institute for Peace (WIP) 2022 on Thursday in Abuja.

The former CPS, who gave the keynote address at the event, said Nigeria’s military deserved accolades having witnessed the beginning of Boko Haram in Maiduguri and fought it since 2009.

“I must commend the Nigerian military for a job well done in the fight against Boko Haram.

“As someone who lived in Abuja, Kaduna and Maiduguri, there is tremendous improvement in the fight against the insurgence, as a journalist, I reported several bomb blasts.

“In 2015 before the general elections, my movement was restricted when I went to Maiduguri because of the activities of Boko Haram but the story is not the same as at today,” he said.

Speaking on state police, Omipidan said the concept of state policing would help arrest offenders threatening insecurity in rural areas.

He said this would in turn provide a collective sense of security to people living in the remote villages far from the cities.

He said the country’s constitution being a federal instrument had the capacity to accommodate such a change.

“The success recorded so far by the Western Nigeria Security Network (WNSN), codenamed Operation Amotekun in the South West responsible for curbing insecurity in the region, attests to the potential possibility that a state police will work,” he said.

Mr Kamiludeen Omotoyosi, the Executive Chairman, WIP, said there was need to encourage the military in the fight against insurgence.

He said that a book had been written in honour of the Nigerian military’s security efforts and to honour their bravery in the fight.

“When people use 30 to 35 years in serving the nation; there is need to encourage them, especially the solders using their lifetime to protect the citizenry.

“Some of them are in Sambisa, the creeks and some of them use more than three years in those places, this is the reason we have come up with a book titled: “Solders Deserve Accolades’’, he said.

Omotoyosi said over 154 poems were written in the book with contributions from different parts of the world in honour of Nigerian military.