Dan’Ali decries state of ethno-religious, sectional conflicts

By Ibrahim Ramalan
Abuja

Minister of Defence, Brig-Gen. Muhammad Monsur Dan-Ali, has expressed concern over what he described as the resurgence of extremism, ethno-religious and sectional conflicts in the country.
Dan-Ali stated this yesterday in Abuja at the opening of Defence Advisers/Attaches 2015 Annual Conference at Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) with the theme: “Enhancing the Defence/Attaché System towards a Sustainable National Security in Nigeria”.

According to him, Nigeria had been confronted by security challenges, which required robust strategy and continuous adjustment in tactic to meet its unconventional nature.
He said: “You are all aware that the world is undergoing profound changes and confronted with growing number of security challenges. Old and new, traditional and non-traditional, we still have quite a few long lasting conflicts and resurgence of geo-politics, which is truly worrisome.

The minister, however, noted that a lot of progress had been made in tackling these security challenges with the coming of President Muhammadu Buhari administration, especially in the area of building regional alliances and international cooperation in the war against terror.
Earlier, the Chief of Defence Intelligence (CDI), Air vice Marshal (AVM) Monday Morgan, confirmed that the DIA had deployed technology into intelligence gathering and further evolved a sustainable psychological operations mechanism for the armed forces to address and compliment the counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations in the North-east.
Morgan reminded that the Defence Attaché system and capability of the Agency-along with their overall intelligence community-is Nigeria’s principal military-political strategic resource.