The Minister of Defence, Gen. Christopher Musa (retd.), has said the enormous size of forests where terrorists operate is making efforts to rescue abducted Nigerians increasingly difficult.
Musa explained that security forces had continued to rescue victims of abduction through various operations, but the perpetrators often escaped into expansive forest areas before troops could track them down.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Thursday, the minister said the size of the Sambisa Forest alone illustrated the scale of the challenge confronting security agencies.
“Few ones now, efforts have been made. If you notice, on a daily basis now, we are really getting, rescuing a lot of them. Yeah, because, like I said, we have 923 square kilometres. So this government is overwhelmed. Sambisa Forest is as big as Belgium, as a country. So when people talk about this, they make it look as if it is one small football field and we are refusing to do anything,” he said.
Musa said terrorists could move deep into forested areas before security agencies were alerted to an abduction, making it difficult to immediately establish their location.
“These places are massive areas. The forest within Kwara comes in from Burkina Faso to Benin Republic into Nigeria and flows through all these things. So what they do is that once these abductions are done, before the information gets to anybody, these guys are already into the forest.
“So it takes a long time for us to follow them, to be able to trace over there. And then the last one that was done in Kwara State, we had to quarantine where they were going, deny them oxygen, and that’s where we were able to get them.”
The minister’s comments followed a series of operations in which security forces rescued kidnapped victims without necessarily apprehending or eliminating their captors.
According to Musa, the pressure mounted by security forces sometimes forces terrorists to abandon their hostages and flee to avoid confrontation with troops.
He said security agencies also worked to cut off the terrorists from essential supplies as part of strategies to force them out of their hiding places.
Musa further disclosed that ransom payments could sometimes help investigators trace criminal networks, noting that the Central Bank of Nigeria was involved in tracking funds associated with criminal activities.
The defence minister also advised state governors to be cautious about distributing motorcycles as palliatives, warning that some of the motorcycles could find their way into the hands of terrorists and enhance their mobility.
