The Chief of Defence Staff, CDS, General Christopher Musa, has demanded the immediate arrest of the self-proclaimed Prime Minister of the proscribed Indigenous Peoples of Biafra, IPOB.
The CDS, however, accused Finland of shielding Simon Ekpa, thereby, making it difficult to arrest him.
This was disclosed by Musa, while speaking as a guest on Channels Television’s special broadcast. The event was to mark Nigeria’s 25th Democracy Day in Abuja on Wednesday.
Musa also decried the activities of IPOB in the South-East, and therefore, demanded the arrest and prosecution of Ekpa.
The CDS called on the Nigerian Government to take decisive action against Ekpa. He urged the Government to explore diplomatic options to curb the menace of the factional leader of the IPOB.
“We have repeatedly complained about the issue of Simon Ekpa. He is in Finland and the Finnish Government is giving him all the support and he is doing what he is doing.”
“By the comments he is making, people are being killed and nothing is being done. This is democracy. If the European Union is supporting democracy and this is happening and they are not taking action, then they don’t mean well for Nigeria.
“We have said that in clear terms. We need to diplomatically find means of getting him out of whatever it is that he is doing. He must be arrested and must be prosecuted.
“Look at it from the other way. Assuming he is in Nigeria and he is doing that to the Finnish Government, you think the European Union will allow that to happen? They definitely will not.”
The CDS also spoke on the deradicalization initiative by the military for repentant terrorists in the North-East. He stated that initiative is yielding the needed results.
He said, “It is working very well. I was the Commander when it started. We were the ones that started it and every process that we did. We worked together with the States because the they had the authority on the ground.”
“Before it started, they were willing to surrender. The States were the ones that took the mantle and we followed up. Everyone that surrendered came first to the security forces that were closest to them. They were disarmed, and we got the DSS to profile them.
“The State Government provides the administration of those people and we took them to their camps. We were able to separate them and realized that not all of them were combatant. Some were forced, and some were used as labourers.
“The main ones that were the actual operators were kept separately, working together with the victims.”
Recall that the Operation Safe Corridor is a programme introduced to fight Boko Haram under former President Muhammadu Buhari.
source: Channels TV
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