DHQ accuses Reuters of ‘mercenary journalism’ blackmail, biased reportage

The Defence Headquarters (DHQ), Abuja, has accused a foreign news organization Reuters of trying to blackmail the Nigerian military through what it called “mercenary journalism.”

Maj.Gen. Jimmy Akpor, the director of defense information, made this accusation in a statement on Saturday in Abuja.

Akpor claimed that the news organization claimed to be working on a number of articles about alleged on unlawful activities taken by the Nigerian military during the 13-year conflict between the government and Islamist militants in Nigeria’s North-East.

He also alleged that Reuters had given the go-ahead to work on fabricated reports that purported to center on an alleged military program that involved forcing abortions on women and girls who had been kidnapped and impregnated by Islamist terrorists.

He rates that the agency claimed that the military allegedly killed youngsters as part of counterinsurgency efforts in the second report.

The defense official stated that the Reuters story would also claim that the Nigerian military has been conducting a covert, routine, and illegal abortion operation in the nation’s North-East since 2013, which has resulted in the termination of at least 12,000 pregnancies among women and girls.

He further said that Reuters had claimed that numerous children had allegedly been shot, poisoned, smothered, or driven over by vehicles during army-led operations.

He continued, saying that among other grave fabrications, the report would claim that soldiers picked out infants and toddlers for execution after saving their mothers and the children from Islamist militants.

Read also:Troops kill seven bandits in Kaduna, recover firearms, ammunition —DHQ

Akpor said that the news outlet further alleged that the key motive for supposedly carrying out the abortions was the alleged notion that the children of Islamist militants, because of the blood in their veins, would one day follow in their father’s footsteps and take up arm against the Nigerian government and society.

Reacting to these allegations, he said “wickedness really runs in the veins of some people and it surely runs deep in the veins of the Reuters team that concocted such evil for interrogation”.

“Irrespective of the security challenges we face as a nation, Nigerian peoples and cultures still cherish life.

“Hence, Nigerian military personnel have been raised, bred and further trained to protect lives, even at their own risk especially, when it concerns the lives of children, women and the elderly.

“This much is reflected in Standing Operating Procedures (SOPs), Concepts of Operations, Rules of Engagements (ROEs) and other documents that guide military operations.

“Hence, nowhere has the Nigerian military operated – Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Rwanda, Yugoslavia, [Darfur] Sudan, Gambia and Guinea Bissau, amongst others — that there was any trace or allegation of infanticide.

“The Nigerian military will not, therefore, contemplate such evil of running a systematic and illegal abortion programme anywhere and anytime and surely not on our own soil.

“The Nigerian military will not also deliberately plan to target children during its counterinsurgency operations or other operations, both within and outside Nigeria,” he said.

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