Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has expressed worry over the rate at which the country was losing his territories to Islamist sect Boko Haram.
In a statement by its General Secretary, Dr Peter Ozo-Eson, NLC called on the Federal Government and armed forces to as a mark of honour, do everything possible to reclaim occupied territories, noting that Nigeria was now in a full blown war.
“We stand by our security forces in these trying times in their engagement with Boko Haram insurgents. We believe in their capacity and resolve to get done the job of containing the insurgents.
“We acknowledge that this is not a regular war. We appreciate other challenges of our security forces among which are logistics, numbers, indiscipline, motivation and others.
“We are however worried by the consistent loss of territory by troops that are supposed to be the pride of the nation to a band of insurgents, perhaps not more than a battalion or two, poorly trained and relatively ill-equipped,” the statement said.
Boko Haram attacks have increased in recent times, with the group taking over major towns in Nigeria’s northeast, renaming them and imposing Sharia law. The efforts of the military to end insurgency in the country have however so far proven abortive, with the attacks taking different dimensions daily. Yesterday, about 47 students were killed in a school at Potiskum, Yobe State, when a suicide bomber joined the students on the assembly ground.
The military has declared an Operation No Mercy, said to be geared at flushing out the insurgents, but what has been heard ever since the war declaration was another helicopter crash with military victims.
