Irabor: CDS details how military curbed menace of sea piracy

 

The Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Lucky Irabor, has stated that the Nigerian army has successfully chased out pirates from the nation’s waters.

Irabor stated this at a briefing organised on Monday, March 22, by the Presidential Communication Team specifically meant to update Nigerians on the issues of Security, Economy and Anti-Corruption Agenda of the Buhari administration.

MuchTalksBlog reported that the Gulf of Guinea had recorded 84 attempted and successful attacks by pirates in 2020; up from the 64 in 2019, but 82 incidents in 2018.

However, the CDS revealed that Nigeria recorded zero piracy within its waters since December 2020; saying the incidents recently reported occurred outside the exclusive right of the Nigerian waters.

Irabor attributed the successes being recorded by the Nigerian army in checking the nefarious activities of pirates to new security measures put in place by relevant authorities.

“In the last three months or so; there had never been a single case of piracy recorded within Nigeria’s waters.

“All the cases reported were outside of the exclusive right of Nigerian waters; and that’s because of the resilience of our maritime forces have led to those bad elements within the maritime domain to shift bases.

“So, I think what you do is perhaps to do more studies to those incidents that we witnessed in the last three months that were executed outside of Nigerian waters,’’ he said.

According to the CDS, the criminal gangs have assessed the Gulf of Guinea; and decided to shift their activities from the Nigerian waters to other areas; following their inability to contain with the nation maritime forces.

On the ongoing fight against insurgency in the Northeast and banditry in the Northwest and the North Central; Irabor dismissed media reports that the fight might last over 10 years or more.

He said based on presidential directives the insurgency fight would soon be over; as the nation security forces had intensified efforts toward bring an end to all forms of criminalities across the country.

The Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC), Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, who was one of the resource persons at the briefing spoke extensively on the efforts of the commission to address corrupt practices in the nation’s public service.

He announced that the commission had successfully recovered N41 billion; from some government agencies and institutions who fraudulently inflated their workers’ payroll.