Surrender or risk destruction, military tells terrorists

The Defence Headquarters on Friday called on terrorists to either surrender to troops or risk destruction.

The DHQ said the troops would not stop applying pressure on the terrorists as they are currently doing in the various theatres of operations.

This was contained in a statement by the Director, Defence Media Operation, Maj. Gen. Buba Edward.

It partly read, “The armed forces will continue to apply strong military pressure such as has been witnessed in the week. The terrorist and their cohorts would continue to suffer heavy casualties. It is in their interest to surrender as being done in the NE of the country to avoid eventual destruction.”

Buba noted that in the last week, no fewer than 50 terrorists were killed while 122 were arrested.

He said, “The operations of the last one week, resulted in 50 neutralized terrorists with 122 of them arrested. Troops also arrested 49 perpetrators of oil theft and rescued 182 kidnapped hostages. ”

He also said N128m worth of crude products were recovered from oil thieves in the South-South region.

Buba said, “In the SS, troops denied oil theft of the estimated sum of N128,066,825.00 only.

“Troops in the Niger Delta area destroyed 242 dugout pits, 49 boats, 78 storage tanks, one tricycle, 21 vehicles, 104 cooking ovens, 3 pumping machines, 7 outboard engines, and 49 illegal refining sites.  Troops recovered 151,850 litres of stolen crude oil, 48,630 litres of illegally refined AGO, and 10,125 litres of DPK. ”

He further noted that 66 assorted weapons and 11,474 assorted ammunition were recovered during various operations.

“The breakdown is as follows: one conqueror APC, one GPMG, one NSVT gun, one GT3 rifle, 25 AK47 rifles, 4 pump action guns, 2 locally made AK47 rifles, 3 locally made guns, one locally made revolver guns, 4 locally fabricated pistols and 4 long Dane guns, 2 locally made hand grenades, one bandolier.

“Others are 574 rounds of 7.62mm NATO, 640 rounds of 7.62mm special ammo, 150 rounds of 12.7mm ammo, 5 rounds of 9mm ammo, 10,520 live cartridges, 5 vehicles, 27 mobile phones, 12 motorcycles, 3 boafeng radios, one Motorolla HHR, 3 bicycles, one solar panel, one solar charger controller, one radio receiver and the sum of N75,909,290.00 amongst other items, “the statement added.