“We will express our intention as a state not to tolerate a change in the status quo by force. We must conduct all sorts of activities such as surveillance and intelligence for that purpose,” Abe said in an address to the military.
“The security environment surrounding Japan is becoming increasingly severe. This is the reality,” he said. “You will have to completely rid yourselves of the conventional notion that just the existence of a defence force could act as a deterrent.”
“There are concerns that China is attempting to change the status quo by force, rather than by rule of law,” Abe earlier told the Wall Street Journal in an interview following a series of summits this month with regional leaders.
“But if China opts to take that path, then it won’t be able to emerge peacefully,” he said in the interview published Saturday.
“So it shouldn’t take that path, and many nations expect Japan to strongly express that view. And they hope that as a result, China will take responsible action in the international community,” Abe added.
“If Japan takes enforcement measures such as shooting down aircraft, as it says it will, that would constitute a serious provocation, an act of war of sorts, and we would have to take firm countermeasures, and all consequences would be the responsibility of the side that caused the provocation.”
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Aware that they have failed to get a fully-fledged peacekeeping force up and running, African leaders now plan a rapid-deployment emergency force, but analysts question whether it can deliver.
The African Union’s “African Standby Brigade”, meant to intervene swiftly in regional crises, has made little headway since preparations for a proposed force of 32,500 troops and civilians drawn from the continent’s five regions started a decade ago.
The Nigerian Police Force has dismissed a Sergeant identified as Lucky Orji for allegedly instigating a mob to kill four students of the University of Port Harcourt on October 5, 2012 in Aluu in Rivers State.
Deputy Force Public Relations Officer, Frank Mba, told Channels Television on Wednesday morning during a breakfast programme, “Sunrise,” that Orji’s dismissal followed Tuesday’s confession by one of the suspected killers, David Chinasa Ugbaje.
The students were set upon by a mob in Aluu, a community close to the university, and lynched.
They were later identified as 19-year-old Lloyd Toku ( 200 level Civil Engineering); 18-year-old Ugonna Obuzor (200 level Geology student); 20-year-old Chiadika Biringa, (200 level Theatre Arts student); and Tekena Erikena, a 20-year-old a diploma (Technical) student by the management of the university.
The police, on Monday, had named Coxson Lucky, alias Bright, as the mastermind of the lynching.
Lucky, who was said to owe one of the students an undisclosed sum of money, reportedly raised the alarm that the students were robbers when they went to his house to demand for the money.
The mob, which converged on the venue of the altercation, then beat and burn the students to death.
Mba said the discovery was made after the police carried out an internal investigation, adding that he would also be tried for murder.
The dismissed policeman and a colleague were alleged to have stumbled upon the angry mob beating the students, Mba said.
“The officers were not even sent to the scene; he (sergeant) went on his own, outside the code of conduct and professional ethics of the job.
“One was professional to ask the mob to stop and the other asked them to continue,” he said.
He said the fact that the police were prepared to prosecute Orji was a measure of its resolve to put an end to all forms of impunity in the Nigerian Police
He said mob attacks were not peculiar to Nigeria, adding, “It is something we must work together to review. Nigerians must not be quick to heap the blame on the police alone.”
He insisted that, like other agencies in the country, the police force also had persons of questionable character.
“f you recruit an officer, the person carries the family value around. We need reorientation from the families and to the various worship centres.
“We must look at the content our mass media is dishing out, we have to review all this,” Mba said.
