BY LEVI JOHNSON
The Nigeria Army has heaped the blame of the 110 farmers killed by the Boko Haram on some local residents who failed to provide useful information.
The military on Monday said it is worried about the trend of some locals in the northeast declining to provide useful information to security agencies.
At least 43 farmers were killed in a deadly assault in Borno on Saturday by suspected Boko Haram terrorists, although the United Nations acknowledged that the death toll was 110.
However, the military spokesman, Major-General John Enenche, while appearing on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, said some local residents reduce the military’s effectiveness to combat the insecurity scourge in the region by not providing relevant information.
He said: “It’s a concern to us. You need a guide, you need information. Will they tell us? That’s a question that we have to ask. Yes, sometimes. And most times, no. And that was one of the issues we have been ensuring to overcome, with civil-military cooperation activities, reaching out to them, even sending people by proxy to talk to them.
READ ALSO: Nigeria’s Intelligence Agencies Must Be Sanctioned Over Every Boko Haram Attack – Duke
“Those are the things that have been one of the banes of the final success in the whole of this operation.
“Our patrols will pass through a route, in a village. By the time you are going, some people are looking at you. When you are coming back, the next thing is that you meet an IED planted on the road. And people saw them, they won’t tell you. So that’s the area I think we are all working together as stakeholders.
“And it is not possible to force information out of people. It’s not possible, just like they say you force a horse to the river, but not to drink water. So all we are trying to do is to build up their confidence in the system and encourage them that look, this is not good for you. Now they do not expect that this will happen, even those ones that they deceived, that they are preaching to them.”
