The Nigerian Air Force (NAF), has appealed to the citizens to disengage from aiding terrorists’ propaganda knowingly or unknowingly by avoiding circulation of images and videos from terrorists on social media as well as making use of their materials for skits.
The Director of Public Relations and Information, Nigerian Air Force, Air Commodore Edward Gabkwet, made the appeal in Abuja in reaction to questions by Journalist during the Defence Media Operations briefing at the Defence Headquarters.
While fielding questions on the cause of the Air Force Helicopter crash, he said “as at this moment, we don’t know what caused the air craft to come down and that is the reason why we have continued to advise our citizens to be weary of the kind of things we keep on sending round on social media, when our citizens allow themselves to be used as conduits or as communication equipment to spread propaganda by enemies of the people or by criminal elements that want to divide us as a nation, then it will be very very difficult to begin to understand why we are where we are today.”
Air Commodore Gabkwet said the Nigerian armed forces have continued to be very open about its operations and accidents in military operations are nothing for any military organisation to be ashamed of.
“We are fighting an insurgency and if anybody thinks insurgency is something that is tackled in such an easy way then you should go back to the history books and find out how other nations have been facing the same problem; what we see in other countries are the citizens of those countries rallying round their armed forces and supporting them.”
He therefore called on members of the press and entire citizenry to rally round the country and the security agencies to get information for the armed forces to succeed and rid the criminals out of the communities.
“The criminal is using the name of religion to kill our soldiers, to kill innocent Nigerians, to rape our women to send our people into IDPs and we still want to circulate their videos on social media,” Gabkwet stated.
Earlier in a statement, the Air Force Spokesman had said the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal Hasan Abubakar pointed out some of the issues when he hosted Governor Umaru Bago of Niger State, on 15 August 2023, at the Headquarters.
The Chief noted that “the rates of aircraft accidents/incidences are directly proportional to the heightened level of air operations”.
“While the NAF regrets such unfortunate incidents, especially as they involve the loss of lives of colleagues, the Service will never shy away from unravelling the probable cause of the crash with a view to drawing lessons.”
