ALLEGED ABORTIONS: COAS accuses Reuters of acting script to rubbish military’s success in North-East

The Chief of Army Staff, Farouk Yahaya, has accused Reuters, an international news agency, of acting a script to undermine the efforts of Nigeria’s armed forces in curtailing the security challenges in Nigeria’s North-East.

Reuters had reported that the Army had carried out mass abortions without the persons’ consent and that at least 10,000 pregnancies had been illegally terminated.

While testifying before the Special Independent Investigative Panel on Human Rights Violations in Counter Insurgency Operations in the North-east, Yahaya however slammed the news agency, accusing it of calculated attempts to undermine efforts of the army in the security-ravaged region.

The Army Chief also described as laughable the claim that it had massacred children percieved to have been fathered by Boko Haram terrorists.

READ ALSO:Nigerian military says it’ll open itself for NHRC probe over report of alleged forced abortions

Yahaya said: “Some people are gifted in writing just like in novels, describing what they never witnessed forgetting that in the military if you waste any ammunition you will be court martialed. We are not a mercenary Army, we are a professional Army.

“We are succeeding and not many are happy that we are succeeding. They cannot reverse our successes therefore they rubbish it. Sometimes, they are playing other people’s script. We are not Boko Haram terrorists, we are trained to be professionals and the training is continuous.

“May be they don’t know we are operating under the government. The National Human Rights Commission follows what is being done in the military and what we are doing is internal operation. We are operating in our country. The Army is Nigerian Army and we are not like Boko Haram that does not operate under code of conduct.

“In addition, caution is planted in our head that the people you are fighting are Nigerians and there is no policy like that, rather the policy we have is respect for human beings, we are not more Nigerian than the people, that is why it is Nigerian Army, the allegation is just grammar, our business is to defeat the insurgents.”

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now