Boko Haram more vicious than ISIS says CDS
The Chief of Defence Staff Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh has said Boko Haram is more vicious than insurgents of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). He spoke today during the opening ceremony of a three day retreat on Security and Media Relations in Crisis Management, organized by the Office of the […]
The Chief of Defence Staff Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh has said Boko Haram is more vicious than insurgents of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
He spoke today during the opening ceremony of a three day retreat on Security and Media Relations in Crisis Management, organized by the Office of the National Security Adviser and Trim Communication in Abuja.
According to him: “now if you look at what is happening in Nigeria with, Boko Haram is not different with ISIS in Iraq and Syria, in fact our own people are more vicious, but everybody has gone to Syria, to go and bomb! Who has come to your aid? You have just been left alone to do it.”
Badeh noted that: “there were predictions in 2004 that by 2015 Nigeria will not be one country, and all of us are sitting down here trading blames and trying to ensure that what those people said in 2004 come true, I don’t know what you are thinking. I do not know what you are thinking.”
He also said there were too many ‘fifth columnist’ in the armed forces that has resulted in misinformation coming from the military: “If your people are misleading you, what do you do? There was a report that we have seen some of the girls and only eight are missing, it was a very senior officer that gave that information from Chibok area.”
“And I think that is when people started saying watch what Chris Olukolade is saying but he was misled by one of us. There are too many fifth columnists,” he said.
He enjoined Nigerians to assist the military with accurate information on the activities of terrorist noting that the military cannot be everywhere.
Badeh also warned against dragging the military into politics, saying: “I heard talks about elections that the military is taking sides in elections, we beat people, we do that, when we started, there was elections in Ondo…did PDP win that elections? We went to Anambra, did PDP win Anambra? Did PDP win Osun? Did PDP win Edo? Please do not drag the military into politics.”
He lamented that: “we are working under very difficult situation, people do not like us, if you join the people that don’t like us, we will have too many countries out of Nigeria, but I think the more we understand our selves the better for us.”
Speaking earlier in a chat with journalists the CDS cautioned against using the media to cause panic in society saying that not all information should be made public.
Asked to give an assessment of the performance of the media, he said: “I wouldn’t say it has been what we are looking for, without pointing accusing fingers some newspapers celebrate when anything bad happens to this country; they really celebrate it, maybe because of politics?”
He also dismissed reports that his house and village, Vimtim has been burnt by Boko Haram: “no Boko Haram has gone to my village, so I don’t know whether it is me you want to bring down or the President you want to bring down, but that is media, sometimes you report what is not there without verifying.”