CENTUS NWEZE Reporting
Federal government of Nigeria has denied claims that it’s military conducted forced abortions on victims of insurgents especially in the North East of the country, alleging, rather, that the report was targeted at stopping military assistance for the country.
Routers, global news agency portal, had last week reported alleged “secret systematic, illegal abortions” involving 10, 000 girls and women in the northeast theatre of operation.
Making the denunciation, however, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Information and Culture, on Monday, said the scary allegation was made without a scintilla of evidence by the foreign news agency.
Mohammed expressed concern that the allegations may well be another ploy to deny the country the necessary military assets to vanquish the terror groups by adversaries, coming against the backdrop of successes recorded by troupes of the Nigerian armed forces against the terrorists.
Reacting to the report at 10th edition of the PMB Scorecard Series in Abuja, the minister stated categorically that the Nigeria Military is not engaged in any mass illegal abortions and infanticide, noting instead that the troupes have rescued 11 Chibok girls with all their children, including 2,018 other persons comprising 339 adult males, 660 adult females and 1019 children, held by the terrorists
He further disclosed that over 82,000 persons have surrendered to the troups and wondered why the news agency ignored those milestones and ventured into the realm of fiction, fake newa and disinformation, which “if not checked, can also have a negative impact on our nation’s ongoing fight against terrorism”.
“As you are all aware, an international news agency recently reported that the Nigerian military, in their fight against Boko Haram/ISWAP, has been running a secret, systematic and illegal abortion programme in the Northeast, ostentibly – according to the news agency – because ‘the children of insurgents are predestined, by the blood in their veins, to one day take up arms against the Nigerian government and society’.
“The story also claimed that 10,000 such abortions have been carried out from 2013 to date on women and girls. The news agency made this grave allegation without a scintilla of evidence, citing only anonymous sources and the reported review of phantom ‘documents’.
“The agency claimed that its investigation was based on interviews with 33 women and girls.
“Interview with 33 women and girls to arrive at the bogus claim of 10,000 abortions? And in a further indication that the figure of abortions quoted was arbitrary or possibly conjured, the agency first put the figure at 12,000 before settling for 10,000,” Mohammed said.