Olonisakin: I foresaw invasion of our forests by bandits

Gabriel Olonisakin, the immediate past chief of defence staff (CDS), says while in office, he conducted a study which revealed that bandits would invade forests.

While dealing with Boko Haram insurgents in the north-east, the military, under his watch, had also been tasked with fighting bandits who operate from forests in the north-west.  

Speaking at a thanksgiving service held in his honour in Ode Ekiti, his hometown in Gbonyin LGA, Ekiti state, the former defence chief said the military adopted futuristic intelligence to address insecurity. 

He said they identified 14 security challenges and developed strategies that bordered heavily on intelligence gathering to tackle such attacks.

“We went through the storm and came up with those babies of necessities. The system did not have those structures to do what we were facing, so we had to come up with ad hoc arrangements like the platforms we created with the intelligence agencies,” NAN quoted him to have said.

“So, I encouraged the officers under me to add value wherever they found themselves. And we always think outside the box, because if you don’t do that, you might not add value and more importantly, to give the system their best.

“That was why we were coming up with strategies on a monthly basis to address the challenges we were facing on security threats, ranging from terrorism, insurgency, to theft.

“We were also futuristic in our approach to address some of the strategies. This invasion of our forests by bandits we are experiencing at the moment, I saw it years back. I did a kind of study and I knew that our next target was going to be the forests.

“We also made sure we encouraged a lot of research and development in the army formation. So, we did our best for this nation in terms of resolving this pathetic insecurity issue — that I can boldly say.”

Olonisakin, who was replaced by Lucky Irabor in January, had earlier said, under his leadership, the military reclaimed all territories controlled by Boko Haram.