The Middle-Belt Conscience Guard has reacted to the proposed nationwide exercise tagged Operation Python Dance III by the Nigerian Army.

Recall that  Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen Tukur Buratai, had announced that the military exercise would commence from January 1, 2019 and last till February 28.

He said the exercise was in preparation against security challenges anticipated before, during and after the 2019 general election.

However, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, kicked against planned nationwide military exercise, claiming that it was another plot to rig the 2019 general elections.


Speaking on the development, the middle belt group said the exercise would rather boost voters’ confidence rather before, during and after the election.

Sunday Onoja, the BoT chairman of the group, while addressing a press conference in Abuja, expressed optimism that the exercise would address areas in the Middle-Belt where the terrorists were once known to have sleeper cells.

His words, “Our geo-political zone, the North-Central sits between the north (North East and North West geo-political zones) and the South (South-West, South-South and South-East geo-political zones). Whatever happens in any of these other geo-political zones therefore automatically affects the Middle-Belt. This makes us default stakeholders in whatever happens in these sister geo-political zones.

“We can validly assert that a resurgence of Boko Haram will affect us because under the previous administration, Niger, Kogi, Plateau and Nasarawa states with the FCT were hotbeds of terrorists’ activities until the present administration came into office and appointed military service chiefs that secured the geo-political zone from terrorists. With the desperate push that Boko Haram is making to prove that it remains relevant, the Middle-Belt has no interest in seeing the group move southwards again as this will place them in our geo-political zone to the detriment of our people.

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