General Abdulsalami Abubakar
Former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, on Tuesday in Abuja said the military needed the support of the populace to conduct any successful operations.
Abubakar, who spoke through the former Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen .Abdulraham Dambazau, said this at the Public Presentation of two books written by Maj-.Gen Chris Olukolade, Director of Defence Information.
The books’ titles are: “Issues in the Mobilisation of Public Support for Military Operation in Nigeria” , and “The Voice and Battles of the Nigerian Military”.
“To be able to conduct successful operation, you need the support of the populace, and so, you need to have somebody who will be able to explain to the public what is going on and I think that Gen. Olukolade played that role very well.
“It is very rare for an individual to produce two books at the same time, being an author myself, and I am highly impressed by the effort of the author.
“You decided to put on record two important issues on military operations, particularly the kind of operations we are facing today, public support is very important.
“The second aspect has to do with public perception because there are two different things and there is where the role of the media comes in and Olukolade is a professional to the core and I am glad that the second book reflected that,” he said.
On his part, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Defence, Alhaji Ismalia Aliyu, said it was imperative that the military had full support of the civilian population.
Ismalia said the key to winning public support, especially in time of war or battle, was not through careless politicking, but by delivering battlefield victories to a watchful public.
He said the civilian populace was so hungry for military victories that they only cared to hear about wins and losses, “not taking in …Read More
Source:: PM Newspaper
