The Defence Headquarters has urged Nigerians to prevent terrorists from having free rein in the new year.
The DHQ called on the citizens to be security conscious and report criminal activities in their environments to security operatives.
Addressing journalists in Abuja on Thursday, the Director of Defence Media Operations, Edward Buba, promised that the military would take action on such tip-offs.
“Make Nigerians no gree for terrorists this year. You see something, you say something and we assure them of doing something, ” he said in pidgin.
Buba joined in using the slang ‘no gree for anybody ‘ which is currently trending among youths as slang for the year.
Many believe that the slang is about staying to one’s beliefs and not easily succumbing to the influence of others.
Unlike Buba, however, the spokesman of the Nigeria Police Force, Olumuyiwa Adejobi, had on Wednesday warned that the slang was capable of plunging the country into crisis.
After asking Nigerians to rise against terrorists, Buba noted that the aim of the military in 2024 is to locate and destroy the terrorists wherever they were hiding.
He added, ” The aim of our ongoing operations remains unchanged and clear even in the new year 2024. We aim to find and destroy the terrorist wherever they may be hiding to ensure their enduring defeat. This would deny the terrorist the ability to terrorize or hurt citizens across the country.
“Our operations indicate that we are hunting the terrorist commanders and their senior leadership. Indeed, from their topmost leadership to the lowest commanders are dead men walking and we will stop at nothing until they are dead or surrender.”
He noted that military operations in the last two weeks had resulted in the killing of 86 terrorists, while 101 have been arrested.
“Our operations resulted in 86 neutralized terrorists with 101 of them arrested. Troops also arrested 30 perpetrators of oil theft and rescued 21 kidnapped hostages.
“In the SS, troops denied oil theft of the estimated sum of N736,115,470.00 only,” Buba added