LAGOS JULY 31ST (URHOBOTODAY)-The Nigeria military has dispelled rumour of killing innocent people as offensive against pipeline oil thieves operating at Ishawo, Igando and Igbolomu areas of Ikorodu in Lagos, Arepo and Awawa, Elepete and Ibafo areas of Ogun State continues.
In an operation tagged ‘Operation Awatse’, a Hausa word for ‘scatter’, Defence spokesman, Brigadier General Rabe Abubakar dispelled the rumours that innocent residents may have been hit by the air raid.
According to him, “There is no way innocent persons would be hit because what we are doing is ‘precision attack on registered target or identified location’. No innocent Nigerian was hit. The attack is on the criminals who hide in the creeks. We are still carrying out the raid.”
He urged people to desist from tagging the criminals as members of a particular ethnic group.
According to him, “We are not carrying out military attack on Ijaw, we are carrying out the operation against criminals. We don’t tag them. Militants are militants. We don’t want to know if they are Hausas, Igbos or Yorubas, our war is against pipeline vandals and oil thieves.”
He said the military deployed fighter jets, attack helicopters and Alpha jets not just to bomb the area but as a show of force.
General Abubakar noted that the military was yet to ascertain the casualty figures.
He urged Nigerians to encourage the military in flushing out economic saboteurs for the benefit of all.
The military joint task force had launched an aerial bombardment of the vandal’s enclaves and hideouts.
The Joint Task Force comprises the elements of the Nigerian Navy (NN), the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) and the Nigerian Army (NA), alongside the Department of State Security Services (DSS), the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) and the Nigerian Police Force (NPF).
The offensive was due to the increasing cases of kidnapping, rape, acts of vandalism and armed robbery operations continuously perpetrated by these vandals, who always come of their enclaves to terrorize civilians in the respective communities.