International News Agency, Reuters, Indicts Nigerian Army Of Massacre; FG Debunk News, Says It Is Fake

By Akinwale Kasali

The Federal Government has debunked the news by International News Agency, Reuters, which alleged that the Nigerian Army carried out a massacre of children during the ongoing war against terrorism.

Reuters had, days ago, in its report alleged that the Nigeria Army is running a secret abortion programme on female victims of terrorists, adding that no fewer than 10, 000 pregnancies had been terminated since least 2013.

That prompted the United Nations, UN, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, to call on the Nigerian authorities to investigate allegations against the service.

Debunking the report by Reuters, and also showcasing the scorecard of the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation under the administration in Abuja on Monday, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, accused Reuters of making such an allegation without a piece of evidence.

He said, “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.

“The Federal Government hereby categorically states that there is no ‘secret, systematic and illegal abortion programme’ being run by our military in the Northeast or anywhere across the country. We also hereby reject the accusation of running an abortion programme levelled against our military. We state categorically that this story is a scary instance of fake news and disinformation combined. The writers deserve an award in fiction writing.

Mohammed described the report as a ploy to demoralise and distract the Military as well as cut Nigeria off the support the country was receiving in the fight against terrorism.

“ Is it a strategy to set the world against Nigeria and cut off the support that is critical to crushing terrorists? Only the news agency can answer these questions. But we stand by our military, which has served meritoriously at home and regional and global peacekeeping operations from 1960 to date,” he added.

In another report by Reuters, released on Monday, December 12, 2022, it insisted on its allegation.

It stated that said the report was based on the revelations of more than 40 soldiers and civilians who claimed to have witnessed the Nigerian military kill children or seen children’s corpses after a military operation.

According to the report, the estimates of children killed by the Army were in the thousands, adding that it investigated six of the incidents in which at least 60 died.

The report read, “The massacre, previously unreported, is just one instance in which the Nigerian Army and allied security forces have slaughtered children during their gruelling 13-year war against Islamist extremists in the country’s northeast, a Reuters investigation found.

“Soldiers and armed guards employed by the government told Reuters that Army commanders repeatedly ordered them to ‘delete’ children because the children were assumed to be collaborating with militants in Boko Haram or its Islamic State offshoot or to have inherited the tainted blood of insurgent fathers.

“More than 40 sources said they saw the Nigerian military target and kill children or saw the dead bodies of children after a military operation. These sources included both parents and other civilian witnesses, as well as soldiers who said they participated in dozens of military operations in which children were slaughtered”.