By JOHN NWOKOCHA, Abuja

Nigerian military authorities Friday slammed Reuters an international news service agency over a report claiming that Nigeria’s military had run a secret,systematic and illegal abortion programme in the country’s North East terminating at least 12,000pregnancies among women and girls. Refuting the Reuters’ claim in a statement made available to the media in Abuja, the military said, “Hmmm! Wickedness really runs in the veins of some people and it surely runs deep in the veinsof the Reuters team that concocted such evil for interrogation”. The military further described the report as insult on Nigerian peoples and culture, insisting it is fictitious.

In the statement by Director Defence Information, Major General Jimmy Akpor, titled: REUTERS’ MERCENARY JOURNALISM-Efforts by Reuters to Blackmail the Nigerian Military Through Mercenary

Journalism Fails,the military among other things authorities urged News Editor for Sub-Saharan Africa, Alexandra Zavis, tobetter retrace her steps, before the founder, Paul Julius Reuter, starts to regret.

The statement reads, “Reuters, an international news agency, now part of Thomson Reuters, wrote that it was working on a series of stories about purported actions of the Nigerian military during thegovernment’s 13-year war against Islamist insurgents in the country’s North East.

“To them, theywere committed to producing an accurate, fair and complete report hence, their request to arrangea time to discuss before their reporting. The supposed stories were purported to focus on 2 specificareas: First, supposed military-run programme of forced abortions performed on women and girlswho were held captive and impregnated by Islamist militants and second, a supposed killing ofchildren by the military as part of counterinsurgency operations.

“The Reuters report was to also allege that, since 2013, Nigeria’s military had run a secret,systematic and illegal abortion programme in the country’s North East terminating at least 12,000pregnancies among women and girls. That, many children were shot, poisoned, suffocated or rundown by vehicles in army-led actions.

“Furthermore, the report was to allege that soldiers selectedbabies and toddlers for killing after rescuing them and their mothers from Islamist militants, amongst other weighty concocted allegations. The key motive for supposedly carrying out theabortions was allegedly the notion that the children of Islamist militants, because of the blood intheir veins, would one day follow in their father’s footsteps and take up arm against the Nigerian

“Government and society.

Hmmm! Wickedness really runs in the veins of some people and it surely runs deep in the veinsof the Reuters team that concocted such evil for interrogation.

“The fictitious series of stories actually constitute a body of insults on the Nigerian peoples and culture for, no people or culturein Nigeria practices such evil as dreamt up by the Reuters team.

“Irrespective of the securitychallenges we face as a nation, Nigerian peoples and cultures still cherish life. Hence, Nigerianmilitary personnel have been raised, bred and further trained to protect lives, even at their own riskespecially, when it concerns the lives of children, women and the elderly. This much is reflectedin Standing Operating Procedures (SOPs), Concepts of Operations, Rules of Engagements (ROEs)and other documents that guide military operations. Hence, nowhere has the Nigerian military

[12/2, 11:06 PM] Honorable John: operated (Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Rwanda, Yugoslavia, [Darfur] Sudan, Gambia and Guinea Bissau, amongst others) that, there has been any trace or allegation of infanticide.

“TheNigerian military will not therefore, contemplate such evil of running a systematic and illegalabortion programme anywhere and anytime, and surely not on our own soil. The Nigerian militarywill not also deliberately plan to target children during its counterinsurgency operations or otheroperations, both within and outside Nigeria.

“The Reuters team must have been schooled in, and have now become proponents of scorched earth and inhuman policies employed by colonialists during the colonial era and during the battlesfor independence in Indo-China, Malaysia, Algeria and other places. Villages and crops wereburnt.

“Children, women, elderly, the innocent were killed in systematic and inhuman programmes.

Nigerians, and by extension Nigerian military, are not made in such wicked mould,and the Reutersteam cannot appropriate the evil of infanticide to the Armed Forces of Nigeria and the Nigerianpeoples.

“But, let’s interrogate the issues. It took Reuters 13solid years to craft an allegation of infanticide against the Nigerian military and the Nigerian nation.

“This shows that a news agency as ‘renown’as Reuters is itself complicit for failing in its mandate to draw attention, to inform the publics aboutsupposed occurrences that offend not only the laws of armed conflict but also internationalhumanitarian law.

“Let us analyze the period from July 2021 till November 2022. A total of 82,064 Boko Haramfighters with members of their families have surrendered to troops of Op HADIN KAI. Out of thisnumber, 16,553 were active male fighters,24,446 were women while 41,065 were children.

“TheBorno State Government is camping and accommodating them family-by-family,as per households, without having to separate the children from their parents.

“In the same camp arethousands of pregnant women and nursing mothers. A total of 262 babies were born within a periodof 4 months (94 in July, 98 in August, 60 in September and 11 in October 2022). This figurecomprises150 female and 112 male children.

“The children were neither aborted nor yanked fromtheir mothers and killed, as may have been the joy of Reuters.

“Let us now spotlight the rescued Chibok girls who were kidnapped from their school by Boko

Haram Terrorists in 2014. Atotal of 11 of the Chibok girls were rescued this year 2022. Hauwa

Joseph with her child,Mary Dauda with her child, and RuthBitrus were in June 2022.

“Troops also rescued Kauna Luka with her child and Hanatu Musa with her 2 children in July 2022.

In the same vein, Aisha Grema with her 4 year-old child and Falmata Lawal were rescued in

August2022. Furthermore,Asabe Ali with her child, Jinkai Yama with her 3 children,Yana Poguwith her 4 children and Rejoice Senki with her 2 children were rescued in September and

November this year.

“The names of the rescued girls are in Serials 18, 46, 41, 38, 7, 11, 3, 12, 20,

19 and 70 respectively (in the order of rescue) in the list of the abducted Chibok School girls. Therescued girls were handed over to the Borno State government after their rescue.

“A visit to the Rehabilitation Centre accommodating the Chibok girls on 29 November 2022revealed that, there were 2 other Chibok girls (with their children) rescued earlier, making thenumber of the Chibok girls in the Centre to be 13. Other residents in the facility were children whowere rescued by troops unaccompanied (by any adult) or who separated from their parents/relativesdue to fog of war.

“The welfare of the Chibok girls with their children and the unaccompanied

children, is a major priority of the Borno State Government. UNICEF is assisting the Centre intracing the relatives of the Chibok girls as well as those of the unaccompanied/separated childrento facilitate reintegration with their communities. If there was any evil, illegal programme tosystematically kill the children of Boko Haram terrorists, then the children that the terrorists begatthrough the Chibok girls would have been prime targets.

“The Joint Investigation Centre (JIC) is where captured terrorists (men and women) are beingprocessed, to determine their level of complicity in the heinous crimes committed by the Boko

Haram Terrorist group. There were 1,952 persons in the facility, which included 23 womenwith 11children who remain attached to their mothers as at 30 November 2022. There is also amedical facility being run by the Centre in collaboration with medical staff of ICRC.

“The welfareof all the occupants at the JIC is thus highly prioritised, including basic education for the children, tailoring and hat-making skills acquisition for the adults as well as provision of recreational andsporting facilities for all the occupants.

Since July 2021 when the Boko Haram terrorists started surrendering with their families in droves,a community-based reintegration process is evolving, involving local traditional leaderships, towncouncils and family members.

“The process is made easier due to the fact that most of thesurrendered terrorists were actually conscripted from their villages by the core terrorists, whoseranks have been degraded by more than 95 percent. Accordingly, a total of 4,933 rescued civilians/surrendered persons (including 1,977 children, 1,423 women and 1,533 men) have beenreintegrated with their communities from the camp housing the Chibok girls alone. The childrenwere not taken from their parents and killed; unaccompanied ones were not also rounded up andkilled.

“A crucial point to note is the fact that more than 245 United Nations agencies, International NGOs and local NGOs operate in the North East, who are active in the IDP camps and otherconcentrations of vulnerable peoples. They provide food, medical care and other services incollaboration with the Nigerian and Borno State Governments. But the wickedness of the Reutersteam members must have blinded them, shutting them off from the humanitarian realities in theNorth East of Nigeria. UNICEF, Girl Child Concern, International Medical Corps, Save theChildren International, Girl Effect, Concern For Women and Children Development Foundation,International Federation of Women Lawyers, Women and Children’s Right and Peace BuildingAwareness Initiative, Medicin Sans Frontiers (France, Switzerland, Belgium and Spain) as well asCentre for Protection of Women and Girls are some of the humanitarian organizations operatingin the North East.

“These have direct responsibilities for the welfare of children and/or women inthe crisis area. Could the humanitarian community operating in the North East of Nigeria beequally complicit in condoning or supporting infanticide as thought of by Reuters?

“Could theUnited Nations Secretary General have commended troops of OP HADIN KAI when he visited

Maiduguri recently? Or, is he, himself also complicit for failure to address an organized infanticidein the North East, which exists only in the warped, wicked imagination of the Reuters team?

“The history of the Nigerian military dates back to 1863, especially with respect to the Nigerian

Army that conducts and operations either as a single Service or in joint operations with other

Services or security agencies.

“So, what metamorphosed into the Nigerian military actually passedthrough several processes and experiences through the First and Second World Wars as well as aNigerian Civil War Contingents of the Nigerian military have also taken part in several UN orregional peace keeping or peace enforcement missions abroad, with honours as mentioned inprevious paragraphs. To participate in such missions, Pre-Induction Training and In-TheatreTraining are usually carried out vigorously.

“The protection of civilians especially women, childrenand the elderly, always formed a major plank of such training sessions.Military training institutions in Nigeria also focus extensively on Laws of Armed Combat andInternational Humanitarian Law. Aside all these, Nigerians and the Nigerian military are lovers ofchildren. Nigerian military personnel have thus constantly denied themselves ration, supplies,transport and medicine in order to cater for rescued civilians especially children, women and the elderly.

“The Nigerian military have grown in leaps and bounds in experience and stature inhumanizing operations, even in the most confused and intense operational environment. Hence, itoffends the pedigree of the Nigerian military, it offends the Nigerian culture, and it offends honourfor Reuters to postulate that the Nigerian military had routinely carried out both small-scale andmass killings of children in its counter-insurgency/counter-terrorism efforts in the North-East ofNigeria.

“The Reuters condemnable series of stories can only have arisen from a mentality of “media or

Press-bullying”. Reuters is a media company with world-wide reach that sells news to print,electronic and online media outlets.

“The so-called News Editor for Sub-Saharan Africa, Alexandra

Zavis, remains in South Africa and concoct evil lies to insult Nigerian peoples and cultures withallegations of infanticide purportedly being sponsored and carried out by the military and civilianleaderships in North East of Nigeria.

“The Reuters’ series of stories are akin to telling the world that Nigerians still live on top of trees.

“It now seems that the new stock in trade for Reuters is, ‘mining’ and selling lies to demonize

Nigerian military, Nigerian institutions and Nigerian leaderships.

“This new vocation of Reutersis worse than illegal arms trade, worse than hard drug trafficking, and actually worse thanterrorism.

“The so-called Reuters’ News Editor for Sub-Saharan Africa, Alexandra Zavis, shouldbetter retrace her steps, before the founder, Paul Julius Reuter, starts to regret the demonicjournalism being practiced by the journalists that he left behind!”