Military Reassures UN of Continuous Support

Following complaints by the United Nations (UN) over the search of its property in Maiduguri, Borno State, the Nigerian Army yesterday said it would continue to support the UN across the board.

The search of the property by troops last week, which was widely reported in the media, had caused uproar and misgivings between the military and the UN.

Lt. Col. Kingsley Samuel of the Theatre Command of Operation Lafiya Dole explained that the assurance became necessary given that the military “has been drawn to some negative rumour against the United Nations Agencies operations in the North East following our cordon and search operations in Pompomari Byepass of Maiduguri.

“The operation was never intended to undermine the integrity of the UN or any other humanitarian agencies that have been working tirelessly to alleviate the plight of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and other vulnerable group in the North-east.

“It is pertinent to state that one of the mandates of the Nigerian Military in the North-east theatre of operation is to provide security and support to the UN and other humanitarian agencies in the discharge of their duties. Indeed, their roles have been complementing the efforts of the Federal Government in the restoring normalcy in the region.”

Samuel said: “Following the incident of 10 August 2017, mechanisms have been put in place to ensure that the incident that led to the peddling of misleading information in the social media does not occur again. The Nigerian