DHQ accuses Reuters of blackmail

The Defence Headquarters (DHQ), Abuja, has accused Reuters, a British worldwide information company, of try and blackmail the Nigerian navy by way of what it described as “mercenary journalism”.

The Director, Defence Data, Jimmy Akpor, disclosed this in a press release on Saturday in Abuja.

Mr Akpor mentioned the information outlet wrote that it was engaged on a collection of tales about purported actions of the Nigerian navy throughout the federal government’s 13-year battle towards Islamist insurgents in Nigeria’s North-east.

He mentioned that Reuters had indicated to work on supposed tales that have been presupposed to give attention to supposed military-run programme of compelled abortions carried out on ladies and ladies who have been held captive and impregnated by Islamist militants.

The second, in accordance with him, is a supposed killing of youngsters by the navy as a part of counterinsurgency operations.

The Defence spokesman mentioned that the Reuters report was to additionally allege that since 2013 Nigeria’s navy had run a secret, systematic and unlawful abortion programme within the nation’s North-east terminating at the least 12,000 pregnancies amongst ladies and ladies.

Based on him, Reuters additionally alleged that many kids have been shot, poisoned, suffocated or run down by automobiles in army-led actions.

He added that the report was to allege that troopers chosen infants and toddlers for killing after rescuing them and their moms from Islamist militants, amongst different weighty concocted allegations.

Mr Akpor mentioned that information outlet additional alleged that the important thing motive for supposedly finishing up the abortions was allegedly the notion that the kids of Islamist militants, due to the blood of their veins, would in the future comply with of their father’s footsteps and take up arms towards the Nigerian authorities and society.

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Reacting to those allegations, the two-star basic mentioned “wickedness actually runs within the veins of some individuals and it certainly runs deep within the veins of the Reuters staff that concocted such evil for interrogation”.

Based on him, the fictional collection of tales really represent a physique of insults on the Nigerian individuals and tradition for no individuals or tradition in Nigeria practices such evil as dreamt up by the Reuters staff.

“No matter the safety challenges we face as a nation, Nigerian peoples and cultures nonetheless cherish life.

“Therefore, Nigerian navy personnel have been raised, bred and additional educated to guard lives, even at their very own threat particularly, when it issues the lives of youngsters, ladies and the aged.

“This a lot is mirrored in Standing Working Procedures (SOPs), Ideas of Operations, Guidelines of Engagements (ROEs) and different paperwork that information navy operations.

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

“The Nigerian navy is not going to, subsequently, ponder such evil of operating a scientific and unlawful abortion programme anyplace and anytime and certainly not on our personal soil.

“The Nigerian navy is not going to additionally intentionally plan to focus on kids throughout its counterinsurgency operations or different operations, each inside and out of doors Nigeria,” he mentioned.

The defence spokesman mentioned that Reuters staff will need to have been schooled in and have now develop into proponents of scorched-earth and inhuman insurance policies employed by colonialists through the colonial period and through the battles for independence in Indo-China, Malaysia, Algeria and different locations.

Based on Mr Akpor, below the scorched-earth insurance policies of the colonialists, villages and crops have been burnt, kids, ladies, aged, the harmless have been killed in systematic and inhuman programmes.

He mentioned that Nigerians, and by extension Nigerian navy, weren’t made in such depraved mildew, including that the Reuters staff couldn’t applicable the evil of infanticide to the Nigerian navy and the Nigerian peoples.

“It took Reuters 13 stable years to craft an allegation of infanticide towards the Nigerian navy and the Nigerian nation.

“This reveals {that a} information company as ‘famend’ as Reuters is itself complicit for failing in its mandate to attract consideration, to tell the general public about supposed occurrences that offend not solely the legal guidelines of armed battle but additionally worldwide humanitarian legislation,” he mentioned.

The defence spokesman mentioned a complete of 82,064 Boko Haram fighters with members of their households had surrendered to troops of Operation Hadin Kai from July 2021 until date.

He mentioned 16,553 out of this quantity have been lively male fighters, 24,446 have been ladies whereas 41,065 have been kids, saying the Borno Authorities offered camps for them family-by-family with out having to separate the kids from their dad and mom.

“In the identical camp are 1000’s of pregnant ladies and nursing moms. A complete of 262 infants have been born inside a interval of 4 months (94 in July, 98 in August, 60 in September and 11 in October 2022.

“This determine includes 150 feminine and 112 male kids. The youngsters have been neither aborted nor yanked from their moms and killed, as might have been the enjoyment of Reuters.

“Allow us to now highlight the rescued Chibok ladies who have been kidnapped from their college by Boko Haram terrorists in 2014. A complete of 11 of the Chibok ladies have been rescued this yr 2022.

“Hauwa Joseph along with her youngster, Mary Dauda along with her youngster, and Ruth Bitrus have been rescued in June 2022. Troops additionally rescued Kauna Luka along with her youngster and Hanatu Musa along with her two kids in July 2022. In the identical vein, Aisha Grema along with her four-year-old youngster and Falmata Lawal have been rescued in August 2022. Moreover, Asabe Ali along with her youngster, Jinkai Yama along with her three kids, Yana Pogu along with her 4 kids and Rejoice Senki along with her two kids have been rescued in September and November this yr.

“The names of the rescued ladies are in Serials 18, 46, 41, 38, 7, 11, 3, 12, 20, 19 and 70 respectively (within the order of rescue) within the listing of the kidnapped Chibok College ladies.

“The rescued ladies have been handed over to the Borno State authorities after their rescue.

A go to to the Rehabilitation Centre accommodating the Chibok ladies on Nov. 29, 2022 revealed that there have been two different Chibok ladies (with their kids) rescued earlier, making the variety of the Chibok ladies within the centre to be 13.

“Different residents within the facility have been kids who have been rescued by troops unaccompanied (by any grownup) or who separated from their dad and mom and kin as a result of fog of battle.

The welfare of the Chibok ladies with their kids and the unaccompanied kids is a serious precedence of the Borno Authorities.

UNICEF is helping the centre in tracing the kin of the Chibok ladies, in addition to these of the unaccompanied/separated kids to facilitate reintegration with their communities.

“If there was any evil, unlawful programme to systematically kill the kids of Boko Haram terrorists, then the kids that the terrorists begat by way of the Chibok ladies would have been prime targets,” he mentioned.

Akpor mentioned the essential level to notice was the truth that, greater than 245 UN businesses, Worldwide NGOs and native NGOs function within the North-East, who have been lively within the IDP camps and in different concentrations of susceptible individuals.

Based on him, they supply meals, medical care and different companies in collaboration with the Federal and Borno State Governments however the wickedness of the Reuters staff members will need to have blinded them, shutting them off from the humanitarian realities within the North-East of Nigeria.

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“The Reuters condemnable collection of tales can solely have arisen from a mentality of “media or press-bullying”. Reuters is a media firm with worldwide attain that sells information to print, digital and on-line media retailers.

“The so-called Information Editor for Sub-Saharan Africa, Alexandra Zavis, stays in South Africa and concoct evil lies to insult Nigerian peoples and cultures with allegations of infanticide purportedly being sponsored and carried out by the navy and civilian leaderships in North-East of Nigeria.

“The Reuters’ collection of tales are akin to telling the world that Nigerians nonetheless stay on prime of timber.

“It now appears that the brand new inventory in commerce for Reuters is, ‘mining’ and promoting lies to demonise Nigerian navy, Nigerian establishments and Nigerian leaderships.

“This new vocation of Reuters is worse than unlawful arms commerce, worse than arduous drug trafficking and truly worse than terrorism.

“The so-called Reuters’ Information Editor for Sub-Saharan Africa, Alexandra Zavis, ought to higher retrace her steps, earlier than the founder, Paul Julius Reuter, begins to remorse the demonic journalism being practised by the journalists that he left behind,” he added. (NAN)