The Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, has urged Nigerians to be careful with their words and actions in order not to demoralize the troops of the Nigerian Army.
Speaking during the Sunrise Daily programme on Channels TV on Tuesday morning, the CDS reiterated that the recent bombing by the Nigerian Army in the Tundun Biri community in Kaduna State was accidental, urging Nigerians to understand that the incident was not deliberate.
He said, “We understand that generally everybody feels bad. We actually feel bad also. Anytime we have mistakes, we take ownership and we feel extremely bad about it, especially when we lose our own troops in the war.
“We just want Nigerians to understand that the incident was never deliberate, we will never deliberately target our citizens. Our mandate is to protect innocent Nigerians, and we’ll continue to do that.
“It is unfortunate that out of the 99% successes that we’ve had, this one that we had has given us a lot of negative responses. But we know Nigerians want success, we are succeeding.
“The Federal Government has set up a committee that will look into it, we know at the end of it the truth will come out and everybody will really understand that it was definitely a mistake.”
While stating that justice will be served to anyone found culpable after the committee has made their findings, General Musa stated that Nigerians should not demoralise the troops by their words and actions.
He said, “We should not by our actions, inactions, utterances demoralise our troops. These guys stay awake so that we can sleep.
“I see a lot of people talking, it is easier for you to say that ‘they made a mistake’, ‘they are not doing well’, but what is the option, if they pull out from these locations, what happens? We will not even have a country.
“So for them to have stayed, slept in the darkness, in the sun, rainfall, dust, and everything, just to ensure that me and you are able to sleep and do our normal routine, I think we should give them some accolades and some respect.”