BEVERLY HILLS, June 09, (THEWILL) – The Chief of Air Staff, CAS, Air Marshall Sadique Abubakar on Friday disclosed that the success recorded in the dislodgement of Boko Haram remnants in the North East was as a result of the application of what he termed “software approach mechanism” by the Nigerian Air Force, NAF.
Speaking through NAF’s Chief of Policy and Plans, James Gbum, during the presentation of 4,000 cartons of noodles for distribution to Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, in the North-East, he stated that the soft approach resulted in “winning the hearts and minds of the people”, without which the final flushing out of the terrorist group would not have been possible.
The Air Chief further explained that the soft approach mechanism had to do with fostering intelligence gathering within the local communities to assist military operations and efforts to dislocate remnants of the insurgents from their hideouts.
According to him, “Soft approach mechanism which we call in the military winning hearts and minds is necessary because you will never make any lead way in fighting terrorism if the people in that environment are not happy with you.
“They will never divulge any information to you and you cannot fight terrorism without having human intelligence, that is having timely reports with those within the environment to help you fight insurgency. And we have build on this in several ways.’’
Abubakar assured that the donation to the IDPs would get to their various camps in the North-East, stressing that the Air Force already had Level 2 hospitals where some of the IDPs were receiving treatment as part of its humanitarian efforts to victims of insurgency.
In his remarks, the Chief Executive Officer of the donor company, Mr Deepak Singhal, said the gesture was aimed at boosting NAF’s humanitarian efforts in assuaging the plight of the IDPs.
He explained that Tolaram Africa Enterprises identified with the humanitarian efforts of the Air Force as a way of reaching the victims of insurgency in the North East, promising that his organization would come up with more support towards ensuring peace in the area.
Singhal pointed out that no business could strive in an atmosphere where there is no peace.
