The Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai, has tasked officers and commanders of Nigerian Army units and formations to ensure improvement on current operational successes in 2020.
Buratai made the call at the closing of the 2019 Chief of Army Staff Annual Conference on Friday in Kaduna.
The conference had the theme: “The Application of Cutting Edge of the Nigerian Army in Tackling Contemporary Security Challenges.”
Buratai said the annual event was an opportunity to evaluate and appraise activities and effort of the Army towards better positioning to face the task ahead in 2020 and beyond.
According to him: “In the past five days, we have reviewed our training, operational and administrative activities as well as other security issues germane to the development of the Nigerian Army.
“In particular, the conference afforded us the opportunity to evaluate our ongoing operations in different parts of the country such as operations against the Boko Haram terrorists, armed banditry, cattle rustling, kidnapping, vandalism, militancy and other criminalities.
“We have achieved undeniably so much in the area of security and these achievements are attributable to focus and exemplary leadership of the president to the security agencies of which army is the major beneficiary.
“It is therefore important that we all join hands to ensure that successes so far achieved are sustained and consolidated.
“I charge you all to maintain a positive disposition and attitude towards improving our current operational successes.
“This is important to providing an enabling environment for the socio-economic stability of our deer country.”
Buratai also disclosed that strategic direction and guidance had been issues for the year 2020 to sustain professionalism and responsiveness of the Nigerian Army.
He also charged commanders and staff officers to strategise on how to craft operations, exercises and training activities towards ensuring sustainable peace and security across the country.
According to him, it is expected that the decisions arrived at in most of the deliberations will help to fashion out better ways of executing set objectives.
The Army chief stated that the current economic realities in the country had spurred the Nigerian army to leverage on its abundant human, material and natural resources to boost its research and development effort in 2019.
He added that the effort had yielded result with the production of the Ezugwu MRAPs as well as other equipment and platforms.
According to Buratai, the Nigerian Army has matched its word with action with the indigenous production of the various platforms, vehicles and weapon systems, which were displayed on the first day of the conference.
He also charged all commanders to be prudent and ensure judicious use of the resources under their charge.
He said: “I will not hesitate to hold you personally responsible for indiscipline and misconduct committed individually or collectively.
“We must all redouble our efforts and assiduously work to deliver our assigned tasks.”
