DHQ Briefs Media on Baga Attack
The Director Defence information Major General Chris Olukolade says the casualty figures during the recent terrorists attack in Baga, borno state are exaggerated.
Major general Olukolade stated this while briefing defence correspondents at the defence Headquarters Abuja.
Correspondent Mohammed Abdulkadri reports that the spokesman of the defense headquarters said:-
A lot of permutations, speculations and conjunctures have been made in many quarters regarding what he described as conflicting figures of the casualties recorded in Baga attack variously put at between one to two thousand people.
He said findings conducted showed that about one hundred and fifty including the insurgents died in the attack which he described as terrible atrocity.
Major General Olukolade however said that Baga and neighboring communities have been subjected to serialized attack to the effect that their populations have been depleted owing to exodus of people.
The Director Defence Information while charging the media to shun sensationalism and to embrace objectivity he said;
Misinformation is being used to discredit the government and the military even beyond the shores of the country describing it as unfortunate and disservice to the country.
He went further; that the press should be factual in their reportage of causalities adding that exaggerated figures being peddled around as facts are tantamount celebrating the adversaries capable of embodying the terrorists and thereby undermining the mission.
The image maker of the military while putting the ongoing operations on land and by air in Baga, Borno state and other parts of the North East in proper perspective said a lot of surveillance is being deployed preparatory to launching attack on the terrorists.
While fielding questions from the Defence correspondent, he said the mission in Baga is an overt one and retracted the earlier assurances that the military will not concede any part of the country assured Nigerians.
High point of the briefing was the presentation of the aerial view of Baga showing the land mass and the exodus of people from the town.
