The Defence Headquarters has refuted the front page report in the Daily Trust of 7 October, 2013, entitled "War on Insurgency: Operational Blunders, Poor Supplies Causing Military Losses". The newspaper has claimed in the report, that operational blunder, obsolete weapons and under-stocked armouries were some of the major reasons behind what it termed "military's apparent inability to end the Boko Haram insurgency".
The refutation from the Directorate of Defence Information stated that "This story has simply followed the pattern of reports by some online media and other underground media." The Defence Directorate of Information further added that "This fiction and distortion of facts in the above story has once again exposed the tendency of a desperate section of the media to attribute fictitious stories to a non-existent 'defence sources'. There is nothing professional, in-depth or objective in fabricating stories and attributing them to the usually unidentified but ubiquitous so called 'Defence sources', all in an attempt to make more sales or create wrong impressions about the military system."
The Defence Headquarters stated that "the information contained in these reports did not emanate from any credible or authentic source within the Defence Headquarters or the military establishment as claimed by the writers of that story" and urged the public to discountenance this and similar reports attributed to these spurious and unknown defence sources as they do not represent the fact about the situation in the military or the ongoing operations."
The media statement signed by the Director of Defence Information, Brigadier General Chris Olukolade appealed to the media "not to rely on spurious sources in reporting sensitive defence and security matters as this tendency only serves to misinform the public. Professionalism demands an extra effort to clarify issues before going to press."
Source: Directorate of Defence Information refutes Daily Trust's story of operational blunders causing Military losses. (http://fmi.gov.ng/latest/31614/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=directorate-of-defence-information-refutes-daily-trusts-story-of-operational-blunders-causing-military-losses)
Federal Ministry of Information (FMI) Nigeria