The Nigerian Army has renamed its counter insurgency operation in the North-East, known as Operation Lafiya Dole. In a statement by the army spokesperson, Mohammed Yerima, he said the operation will henceforth be known as Operation Hadin Kai. Hadin Kai is a Hausa phrase which literally means ‘cooperation’. According to the statement, the change of name became pertinent following the successes the army has recorded in the region. “This is premised on the fact that the Nigerian Army (NA) has made a lot of progress over the years and needs to re-align for better efficiency. Also affected are the re-designation are the Army Super Camps which now reflect the nomenclature of the formations and units followed by the name of the locations they occupy while subunits are redesigned as Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) followed by the name of their locations. All these changes are with immediate effect,” an army statement read. He said the renaming is in line with the vision of the army chief of having “A Nigerian Army that is Repositioned to Professionally Defeat all Adversaries in a Joint Environment.” Nigeria has been battling an insurgency in its northeast states for more than a decade which has killed 36,000 people and displaced millions. The Islamic State of West African Province (ISWAP) split from the jihadist group Boko Haram in 2016 and has since become a dominant threat, attacking troops and bases while killing and kidnapping passengers and residents in villages, towns and highways across the region. The insurgency has spread to neighbouring Cameroon, Chad and Niger, prompting a regional military coalition to fight the insurgents.
The FG through the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) has announced its decision to sell the five power generation companies constructed under the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP). The BPE in a document signed by the Director-General, Alex Okoh, and made available to the media on Sunday called on investors to bid for the 100 per cent shareholding of the government in any of the companies. The document said that it was in continuation of the ongoing reforms of the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry and consistent with the Nigerian Electric Power Policy and Electric Power Sector Reform (EPSR) Act, 2005. It also said that the Board of Directors of Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC) and the National Council on Privatisation had approved the sale of the five companies through a competitive bidding process. It however, did not say how much was expected to be realised from the sales. The listed companies constructed under the NIPP are located in Cross River (Calabar GenCo’s 634 megawatt GenCo); Edo (Benin Genco’s 507MW plant at Ihovbor), Kogi (Geregu’s 506MW GenCo), Ogun (Olorunsogo GenCo’s 754MW plant) and Ondo (Omotosho’s 513MW GenCo at Okitipupa). The BPE first revealed the government’s plan to sell some generating companies during its 2021 budget defence at the National Assembly in November 2020.
President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the establishment of the National Centre for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons (NCCSALW). The president also appointed Major-General A.M. Dikko as the pioneer coordinator of the centre. Z.M. Usman, who heads strategic communications at the Office of the National Security Adviser said the NCCSALW replaces the defunct Presidential Committee on Small Arms and Light Weapons. Usman said the centre will serve as the institutional mechanism for policy guidance, research and monitoring of all aspects of small arms and light weapons (SALW) in Nigeria. He said the decision to establish the centre is part of the FG’s efforts to restructure the country’s security architecture and address “emerging threats and strengthen regional mechanisms for the control, prevention and regulation of SALW”. “The impact of the proliferation of SALW across national borders in Africa and the Sahel region has resulted in terrorism, human trafficking, organized crime, and insurrections in West Africa and Nigeria,” the statement read. Dikko, the pioneer coordinator of the centre, is said to have vast experience working with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the United Nations. He was a course director at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Centre and chief instructor of the Nigerian Army Peacekeeping Centre. He has also served as commander of Operation Lafiya Dole, the government’s former counter insurgency operation in the North-east.
Members of the French armed forces deployed in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide were set on Monday to avoid any trial after prosecutors recommended that judges drop a case accusing them of complicity in crimes against humanity over their inaction in a massacre. Survivors of the June 1994 slaughter in the hills of Bisesero in western Rwanda had accused French troops of deliberately abandoning them to Hutu extremists, who murdered hundreds of people in the area within days. The call to drop the 15-year-old case followed a major report in March examining allegations about France’s role in the genocide, which found that Paris had been “blind” to preparations but not complicit in the killings. The Paris prosecutors concluded that the investigation “did not make it possible to establish that the French forces could have been guilty of the crimes of complicity in genocide and crimes against humanity”. The report commissioned by French President Emmanuel Macron was particularly damning about the events in Bisesero, calling the failure of French troops to protect Tutsis sheltering in the hills, in a so-called “safe zone”, a “profound failure”. The report noted that the French had been aware that Tutsis hiding in the area had been attacked but failed to respond to their pleas to be saved for days, by which time hundreds of people had been murdered.