THE Chief of Naval Staff (CNS), Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas has warned the Niger Delta Avengers to stop depleting Nigeria’s economic resources by bombing oil pipelines, saying that the Nigeria Navy is ready to crush any individual or group that threatens the peace and unity of the country.
Ibas made the assertion in Calabar on Tuesday while inspecting fleets and unit of the Eastern Naval command in a bid to ascertain their readiness to respond to threats and other contingencies both contemporary and emerging in the country.
He warned the Niger Delta Avengers, pirates and other criminals that no group has the audacity to threaten the cooperate peace of the country adding that the Nigeria Navy was ready to crush any threat and contingency.
His words: “I am here to carry out an appraisal on the activities of all mobile units at shore, training establishment, as well as exercise the fleet later, this is just a way of figuring out if we are prepared for the various contingencies and threats we have both contemporary and emerging, we do not need to wait until an individual threaten the cooperate existence of Nigeria, we have a wide range of contingencies and we will make sure that we apply them appropriately
“No individual or group including the Niger Delta Avengers has the audacity to threaten a country and we will also make sure that Nigerians can use maritime space unhindered. We have in the last two years made a considerable impact of reducing the operations of pirates”
“The presence of the Navy has given rise to maritime commerce and there has been a remarkable improvement on the number of ships that are coming into the country, to supply the nation’s economy and there is food security.They come from land to the Open sea to see if they can harvest where they did not sow, a team of six pirates and we are conducting investigations to get to the root of this criminal element “
Speaking further he said they Nigeria Navy recently acquired 150 guns from boats from Epenal an indigenous company adding that by so doing they will create employment and save Nigeria some foreign exchange.
He said: “Most great nations are the ones who are able to take their destiny in their hands; North Korea as a small nation which is not too developed can be seen to be daring a world power like the United States just because they have the capability to develop technology”
“ What will threaten not only their enemies but the existence of mankind .we have also noted that Nigeria over the years has made attempt to build technological capacities and capability to be able to produce its own equipment and we have been able to identify that we have an indigenous company that can do that through Epanel” he stated.
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