They put down their weapons for a while and undertook a purely civil task on Thursday: ridding Akpan Andem Market of its heaps of rubbish.
Officers of 2 Brigade Nigerian Army embarked on a cleanup exercise at the market in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital, as part of activities marking Operation Crocodile Smile IV, an operation to curb violent crime.
The exercise which was led by the 2 Brigade Commander Brig.-Gen. Taoreed Lagbaja was to ensure cordial civil military relationship in the area of operation.
Speaking to journalists after the early morning exercise, Lagbaja said the Army was desirous of establishing and maintaining peace and harmony with the civil society.
He said, “What you are witnessing this morning is an environmental sanitation in continuation of our exercise crocodile Smile IV.
“The Nigerian army has some statuary role and part of it is to act in need of civil authority and we have discovered overtime.
“We will continue to upgrade in the population domain, we will relate with civil populace, we will relate with every stakeholders and it is part of this relationship that we have come here this morning to clean the environment, especially this market here, cut grasses.
“It is a show of military support to civil populace that we are working in need of them.
“Exercise Crocodile Smile IV is a military exercise that will be driven by intelligent, so it serves two purposes.
“First to assist in training our troops for their day-to-day activities and second, it has an intelligent head, base on intelligence that we will receive from sister agencies, state security service, the police and other agencies, we will act to apprehend criminal and economic saboteur that operate in the general environment.
“We have population influence activities like environmental sanitation, tomorrow we are going to have medical exercise, we will go into schools and carry out sensitisation,” he said.
The Chairman Akpan Andem market, Mr Nseabasi Ndoh, commended the Nigerian Army for coming down to keep the market clean in spite of their military engagement.
“The Army Spokesman called me yesterday (Wednesday) and told me that the army are coming, I thought he was joking, by 6am they were here.
“They said they were coming to do their normal routine sanitation in the market.”