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| Maj Gen. Enenche |
Following the panic in southeastern Nigeria last week, where school children took to their heels, abandoning classes, on allegation that men of the Nigerian Army were on a mission to inject them with the Monkey Pox virus, Defence Headquarters, on Sunday, said instead that the Armed Forces’ medical outreach was part of the Forces’ constitutional responsibility of securing lives and property of Nigerians.
Maj Gen. John Enenche, the Director Defence Information, made the clarification in Maiduguri, saying there was no sinister motive behind the Armed Forces medical outreach exercise.
He dismissed, as misrepresentation and smear campaign against the military regarding the Monkey Pox disease outbreak in parts of the country, saying the Armed Forces had been conducting medical outreach during operations and routine training exercises such as the war against the Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East and Egwu Eke II in the South-East.
His words: “Categorically, the practice of reaching out to the general public medically is akin to the key task of securing the lives and property of Nigerians; therefore, it can never be done with ulterior motives.
“Thus, Nigerians should be assured that the Armed Forces will continue to carry out its all-encompassing constitutional responsibility of “National Security,” health security inclusive.
“In this regard, quick impact medical outreaches were usually conducted during deliberate operations such as the war against insurgency and terrorism in the North-East and routine training exercise such as Egwu Eke II in the South-East.”
Enenche, in a NAN report, added that the Nigerian Armed Forces had been in the global best military practice and had impacted positively on the lives of Nigerians through the medical outreaches.
According to him, the Nigerian Army, Navy and Air Force had carried out various medical outreaches, including to victims of natural disasters in the six geo-political zones in the country in the past, stressing that the exercises were conducted without any negative observation or insinuations.
“In specific terms, the campaign of calumny against the Nigerian Army regarding the outbreak of Monkey Pox disease should be disregarded,” he said, adding, it is the machination of the usual mischievous and disgruntled elements in the business of blackmailing the Military for their myopic selfish interests”.
Enenche therefore assured members of the public of the Defence Headquarters’ commitment to genuine and sincere medical outreaches by the Armed Forces in view of their positive impact on the people.
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