Maj-gen Pat Akem-Vinir (Retd), a former provost of the Nigerian army, said the military needs at least 500,000 personnel to effectively combat terrorist groups such as Boko Haram and Boko Haram and the Islamic West African Province (ISWAP).
“Our army is small. We need at least 500,000 people.” The retired general in Friday’s version of Internal source with Laolu Addea socio-political program aired on channel television.
According to global fire protection rights, the Nigerian army currently has about 230,000 personnel. Maj-Gen Akem-Dongir stressed that many military gains from the struggle against the Northeast rebellion were lost due to insufficient manpower to secure territory after the cleanup operation.
He explained: “When you fight the rebellion, you have to grab the ground and hold the ground. This requires troops to do this. When you capture the ground, you can build and hold so that people can recover themselves and have a safe and secure life, but if you are cleaning up the area and you are not holding it, then they (terrorists) will come back.”
The retired general also dismissed the relevance of the newly formed terrorist group Lakurawa, which operates in the northwest of the country. He called the group “a group” just seeking attention.
“We shouldn’t recognize them, we shouldn’t even discuss them because they’ll think they’re being noticed now and want to do more. They’re a group and shouldn’t even get our attention. This should be dragged Go – No energy should be given. They are seeking attention,” he said.
Maj-Gen Akem-Doningir urged the government to provide the military with appropriate equipment, training and “full authority” to neutralize threats to national security.
“The president needs to provide instructions to the security agencies that Nigerians hear in the open. When he does this publicly and tells them I want to see your needs on the table in two weeks because there is no sense of security, you can’t talk about it. Governance.” he added.
