President Muhammadu Buhari has vowed that Tuesday’s attack on the facility of the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA), Kaduna, would not dampen the morale of the military but rather hasten their determination to end criminality in the country.
The NDA which is located at Afaka, shares border with the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation, Afaka where over 50 students where abducted few months ago.
The invasion of the Defense Academy, a leading military training institution in the country, in the early hours of Tuesday morning, and killing three officers, has further weakened confidence in the nation's security system even as the country struggle to get insecurity under control.
But while responding to the development, the President in a statement by his spokesman, Femi Adesina, insisted that the intention of the bandits which he claimed was meant to throw a dampener into the morale of the nation’s Armed Forces, would only strengthen their resolve to end insecurity in the country.
According to him, contrary to their intention, the attacks would only succeed in buoying the military’s resolve to totally uproot the evil in the society.
The President noted that the attack, which led to loss of lives, came at a time that the military had put insurgents, bandits, kidnappers, and other types of criminals on the retreat, just as he added that the heinous crime would not stop the resolve of the Armed Forces to accomplish their mission of ridding the country of banditry.
Commiserating with the families, who lost their loved ones, and praying God to comfort them, Buhari vowed that the deceased would not die in vain.
Meanwhile, Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State, has said defeating bandits in Kaduna and other troubled States in the country, will be impossible until the Buhari government improve its defense system by deploying more sophisticated weapons such as drones and missiles technology.
El-Rufai who made the statement in Abuja, said drones are more cheaper than planes, and can be effective in modern warfare particularly in situations where planes cannot be used. He said, only through a combination of air and ground forces, can bandits be defeated.
He said, “I think the security agencies also need more advanced technology. The Air force needs more drones.
“Drones are much cheaper than planes, and there are drones now that can carry missiles.
“But drones can be more targeted, more selective and quiet. And drones can also fly in circumstances that airplanes cannot due to bad weather.
“We need the combination of airpower, and we need troops on the ground augmented by local expertise and knowledge. We need just one, two, three months of operation just to kill all these bandits.
“It’s the only way to stop this. So the only option that we have is to ensure that we kill them all.”