The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has announced that it will set up a panel to investigate reports by global news agency Reuters that the Nigerian Military carried out abortions of pregnancies from affairs with insurgents in North East Nigeria in the past 10 years.
Reuters had in the report, claimed that the Military was involved in the abortions of children as well as other Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) in its ongoing operations against insurgents in the North East.
However, the Nigeria Military, through the Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor, has refuted the allegations which he described as outright nonsense, saying that it was a ploy to malign the image of the Nigerian Armed Forces which has been at the forefront of the counter insurgency efforts in the North East.
“Their allusion is news to me. It never occurred. I never saw anything like that from Maiduguri down to Maimalari Cantonment where I lived, which is a major hospital for our personnel and their family. I am disappointed to say the least. So, it is not true.”
But he had also said he will allow the NHRC Commission to probe the claim.
It was in this regard that the NHRC announced the setting up of Special Independent Investigative Panel on Human Rights Violations in the Implementation of Counter Insurgency Operations in the North East (SIIP-North East) on Tuesday in a statement issued by the Executive Secretary of the Commission, Mr Tony Ojukwu, SAN, in Abuja.
Ojukwu said the panel will be inaugurated on Feb. 7 at the Bukhari Bello Auditorium, NHRC Headquarters in Abuja.
Members of the panel, he said, are retired Justice Abdu Aboki, Supreme Court justice as Chairman, Ms Kemi Okonyedo, representing Women Rights Organisation, Mr Azubuike Nwankenta, representing NBA
Others are retired Maj.-Gen. Letam Wiwa, (Military Law and Intelligence Expert), Dr. Maisaratu Bakari (Consultant in Obstetrics and Gynecology (Modibbo Adama University Teaching Hospital Yola).
Others are Dr Fatima Akilu (Humanitarian Expert, representing Civil Society), and Ms Halima Nuradeen (Psychologist, representing Youths)
(NAN)
