Boko Haram War: 796 officers and soldiers return from Sudan, set for war as Army Moves To Rebuild Northeast

The Nigerian Army said it is gradually moving into the phase of rebuilding the destruction in the Northeastern part of the country, where troops have engaged Boko Haram insurgents since 2011 when the situation went out of control.
The General Officer Commanding (GOC) 81 Division of the force, Major General Henry Edet, said the insurgents have been seriously degraded to the point that they can no longer stage attacks on troop locations, villages and towns in the Northeast.
General Edet spoke while addressing returning peacekeepers from Darfur Sudan at the 65 Battalion parade ground in Lagos, saying that Boko Haram has to be defeated as a precondition for the rebuilding phase of the counterinsurgency.
The Commander listed three phases of the counterinsurgency as: rooting out the insurgents; holding the ground; and rebuilding the area.
He said that the military was gradually transitioning from the stages of rooting out the insurgents and holding the ground to rebuilding the devastated villages.
Edet welcomed the 796 officers and soldiers, telling them that the Federal Government was currently implementing its ‘Change’ mandate and that they should apply loyalty, integrity, discipline, respect for others and courage, core values of the force, to be able to fit into new order of the Buhari administration.
He commended the troops for their success in Dafur and urged them to brace up for more tasking assignments in Nigeria, especially as some of them would be deployed to the Northeast to assist in quelling the Boko Haram insurgency.
The GOC told the returning peacekeepers that the operational capabilities of Boko Haram have been seriously degraded to the point that they no longer have the freedom to launch attacks on troops and villages.
While explaining that the Federal government and some NGOs would be involved in the rebuilding stage, General Edet told officers and men that their expertise would also be required.
The troops – Nigerian Battalion (NIBATT) 44 comprising of 796 soldiers – were commended for not losing any of its members during battle.