The Nigerian military on Wednesday said it has commenced the construction of roads into the Sambisa forest and Alagarno, which are strongholds of the Boko Haram Terrorist group.

Lucky Irabor, a Major General and Head of the counter-insurgency operations in the North East, codenamed ‘Operation Lafiya Dole’ made this known during a press conference in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State.

Irabor also revealed that over 80 percent of Sambisa forest is now under the control of the Nigerian military, saying that the counter-insurgency war is nearing its end.

“We have embarked on roads construction within the Sambisa forest to open up the area and also ease our operations within the theater,” he said.

“I call on individuals and corporate organisations to come in and support the military, as everything cannot be left to government; even with construction materials and other materials, as roads are essential in reviving the economic development of the North-east,” he added.

The army commander said that 1,880 civilians, mostly women, were rescued from boko haram captivity in the past week.

He also revealed that in the last one week, 504 suspected Boko Haram insurgents were arrested with 19 voluntarily surrendering.

He further said that 37 foreigners are currently in the custody of the military and are undergoing profiling to ascertaining whether or not they are part of the boko haram terrorists.

Irabor advised Nigerians, especially female students of tertiary institutions to be wary of new recruitment strategies by the terrorists especially on the social media.

He also appealed to members of the public to continue to support the final push to wipe out insurgency from the North East by providing the military relevant information.

The theatre commander frowned at some media houses who, according to him, has continued to deliberately ignore the good stories emanating from the counter insurgency operations but rather chose to exaggerate the few challenges being encountered by the troops.

He warned such media houses to desist from such acts as they end up demoralizing the troops and making Nigerians believe that the terrorists were gaining the upper hand, which is not the true picture of things.