ABUJA (Sundiata Post) – President Goodluck Jonathan has been commended by the Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Adesola Amosu, who said that the President has shown more commitment towards tackling the insurgency in the North East than his political ambition to be re-elected in 2015.
Amosu, who spoke on Thursday when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Defence (Air Force) for the 2015 Budget defence, also commended the collaborative efforts of the neighbouring countries of Chad, Cameroon, Benin Republic and Niger in the fight against the insurgents in the North East.
According to him, the bilateral cooperation between Nigerian soldiers and these countries gave the nation’s security forces a lot of boost.
He particularly observed that they had blocked the terrorists from escaping to the neighbouring countries.
“On the 15th of February, we were in Lagos to harmonise equipment with the ammunition system. It was very clear that we were commencing a major offensive, which was very quick for me to release information that we are going to storm the North East, we are going to storm the Sambisa Forest. Since February 15th, if you notice, there has not been any major offensive from the Boko Haram terrorists. It is very clear that by our efforts, we have been able to disrupt their communication lines. Their command and control system is substantially damaged.
“Again, their ability to plan is not there. We have also been able to destroy their training stations. So, the issue of regeneration is out of it. We are lucky again to have our neighbours who have agreed to work with us. That has given us huge comfort because when they cannot run away to the neighbouring countries, we are sure that we are going to contain them here, and it will be easy to take them down. So far, we are happy and satisfied with what is going on.
“And I am happy to announce to you that we are getting a lot of cooperation from the citizens. We are getting valuable intelligence from the citizens. We just want to encourage them to keep it up because this is our country and we have no other country to go to. These are people coming from outside the country to attempt to destabilise our country.
“I want to use this opportunity to acknowledge fully the support of Mr. President, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. For me, this is a personal opinion, he has given more effort to security than even the politics. So, we are happy with him,” he stated.
[pro_ad_display_adzone id=”10″]
In his remarks, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Air Force, Senator Saidu Ahmed Alkali, pointed out that the primary responsibility of the Federal Government is to protect lives and property.
Alkali assured the Air Force that he would do everything within his power to improve on the funding of the establishment to enable it continue to discharge its function effectively.
“You see, as it is enshrined in the Constitution of this country, it is the cardinal responsibility of government to protect lives and property. So, despite that there is a challenge in our revenue, we have to prioritise the little that we have, to make sure that this country is protected. So, I am going to take it up with the (Senate) Committee on Appropriations when I go to submit my report, and make sure that they get more funding.
“So, I strongly suggest that we have an integrated budgetary system in this country, not only for the Budget Office to sit down and prepare the budget. The ministries, departments and agencies along side with the National Assembly and the Budget Office need to prepare the budget together, so that they come up with a comprehensive budget that will satisfy the yearnings and aspirations of our citizens,” he said.
