The Presidency has disclosed that the country’s armed forces are battle ready to deal with terrorists and nip their threats in the bud.
This was contained in a statement issued on Sunday by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu.
TheFact Daily reports that in the statement, titled, “Latest version of terror propaganda and military readiness”, a response to the threat by terrorists to kidnap President Muhammadu Buhari and the Kaduna State governor, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, the presidency called on the media not to give much publicity to terror groups.
A terrorist group in the northwest, had in a video on Sunday, threatened to kidnap the number one citizen and the Kaduna State governor, as well as kill all of the captives of the Abuja-Kaduna train attack if their demands were not met by the federal government. In the video, the terrorists were captured flogging some of the captives.
It would be recalled too, that only few weeks ago, terrorists had attacked the president’s convoy while on its way to Daura, in Katsina State.
According to Mallam Garba Shehu,
“the country’s security and defense forces are not clueless or helpless. They have their plans and ways of doing things which they will not display in the media”.
He also explained that the dilemma the security forces are having in bombing the location of the perpetrators of Abuja-Kaduna train kidnap was the collateral damage it may cause the innocent people and the outcry such action may generate.
“The dilemmas in dealing with the specific case of train terrorists are manifold: punitive action like the popular call for carpet bombing of the known locations may assuage the desire of an angry public for revenge, but what about the hostages?
“They have committed no offense. All they did was to board a train”, he said.
He posited that the security forces are not relenting, and are acutely aware of their duties, responsibilities and what the nation expects of them.
“Whenever they embark upon those actions, they expect that the public should provide them with the needed support”.
The presidency, while urging the media to increase their support for the fight against the exploitation of the internet and social media for terrorist purposes, assured the public that “the President has done all, and even more than what is expected of him as Commander-in-Chief by way of morale, material and equipment support to the military and expects nothing short of good results in the immediate.”
