Following the recent bombing in Kaduna state, a retired Nigerian Air Force Officer, Air Commodore Abayomi Balogun, said the accidental bombing at Tudun Biri in Igabi Local Government Area of the state, occurred as a result of faulty intelligence.
During his recent interview with newsmen in Abuja, Balogun called on the Nigeria Air Force operatives to be proactive in adopting the bottom -top approach in military operations.
In his word: “Before you even deploy the drone, you should have some level of intelligence and the drones will go to confirm it.
“The drone must confirm what has come in before it takes any action. So, human intelligence is where it starts from. From the bottom because they are people within that area except you are not doing the right thing.
“They are people within that locality who should have told us that this is a prayer session. Sometimes, we even give warning that something is about to happen in such an area.
“Yes, early warning is important. If we were doing the real intelligence work, we should have started from the ground.
“The human intelligence from the ground would have provided us with what we will need to plan.
“So, intelligence has played a major role in most of the accidents that have occurred.
“That is why I have been preaching that we change our approach from what we have been doing now to a better way where everybody is included.
“If you start gathering your intelligence from the bottom in the villages and the communities, this kind of collateral damage would not have occurred because they are there.
“Even if you are looking for bandits, they know the kidnappers; they are not ghosts So, those guys are the grassroots are supposed to be our intelligence.
“The drones, the unmanned vehicles are supposed to go and reconfirm what we have. That means the process of analyzing our intelligence is still faulty.”
