New Telegraph

Army: The Economist trying to destabilise Buhari’s govt

The Nigerian Army has accused a London- based magazine, the Economist, of alleged plans to destabilise the government of President Muhammadu Buhari. The Army predicated its claim on a recent article by the Economist entitled, “Insurgency, Secessionism and Banditry Threaten Nigeria”. Among others, the wellregarded magazine had said: “When violence erupts, the government does nothing or crack heads almost indiscriminately. Nigeria’s Army is mighty on paper.

“But many of its soldiers are ‘ghosts’ who exist only on the payroll, and much of its equipment is stolen and sold to insurgents. The army is also stretched thin, having been deployed to all of Nigeria’s states”. In a statement, yesterday, the Director of Army Public Relations (DAPR), Brig-Gen. Onyema Nwachukwu, said the report had a sinister motive. He said: “The Nigerian Army has been notified of a recent article published in the online version of the “Economist”, a London based magazine, titled “Insurgency, Secessionism and Banditry Threaten Nigeria” which was ostensibly crafted to denigrate, demonize and destabilize the Nigerian Government.

“The report also contained some unimaginable slurs targeted at the Nigerian military and the Nigerian Army in particular, to which we would like to respond. “Even as the real intention of the otherwise respected Economist magazine in publishing such toxic concoctions weaved up as report on Nigerian Government’s response to the multi-faceted security challenges assailing the country is yet to be unraveled, the source of the article is very clear.

“It is one of those deliberate falsehood and noxious narratives orchestrated by a network of detractors and coven of dark forces working very hard to adorn the Nigerian Army in an unfitting garb of infamy.

The vile report which the Economist chose to offer its platform for publication, spared no effort in trying to vilify and rubbish the image, character and reputational standing of the Nigerian Army, but failed woefully. “As a professional, hardfighting and globally respected institution that has continued to occupy deserved glorious position in the comity of global defence forces, the Nigerian Army is certainly not what the socalled report by the Economist tried to characterize it.

Even more ludicrous was the embellishments of the said report by the notorious unprofessional media outlets that were quick to republish the obvious falsehood.” “How is it conceivable that an international magazine worth its name and professional reputation would agree to lend its medium for a hatchet job of an article without as much as committing little effort to finding out the real truth about the Nigerian Army? “Let it be known to the Economist magazine and those who concocted the lies they published that the gallant officers and soldiers of the Nigerian Army are undeterred, undistracted and totally unfazed by the harebrained assertions contained in that silly report.”

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