Wednesday, August 20

Human Rights Allegation: Nigerian Army Defends It's Men...



The Nigerian Defence Headquarters (DHQ), on Tuesday, said it has carefully watched the four-minute video clip which the Daily Independent newspaper, United Kingdom (UK) promised to release, detailing what it described as “Nigerian government’s war crime against its citizens.”

It, however, said “the hastily packaged conclusions and judgmental remarks are clearly in furtherance of the now common public assault against the Nigerian government and its military.”

In a statement on Tuesday, the Defence Headquarters stated that despite the wide and alarming promotion given to the said document, the material only contained a synopsis of scenes from the same video which had been in circulation on the internet for some weeks now.

It recalled that the military authority had also initiated a broad investigation into the clips, with a view to identifying those indicted to ensure that due justice was meted to any perpetrator of human rights abuse narrated in those films.

“It is also noteworthy that the only new addition to the video film report of the documentary are the comments by individuals, whose position about terrorism in Nigeria are already well known.

“It is, therefore, curious that despite the ongoing efforts, these apparently orchestrated campaign with the use of scenes and footages that are under investigation could constitute a threat to the efforts to locate the culprits of the alleged human rights abuse.

“It will be recalled that similar attitude was displayed last week by a human rights campaign group which, despite assurances of due investigation of the crimes alleged in these video, still went ahead to embark on a media campaign with similar video, thereby apparently giving the likely culprits a chance to escape or cover their tracks,” it said.


The Defence Headquarters stressed that “unfortunately, these tendency only serves to compromise efforts at unraveling the perpetrators of the crimes, thereby compounding the evil of war crime as Daily Independent UK puts it.”

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