Ojukwu said the panel to probe the allegations would be inaugurated on February 7 at the NHRC Headquarters in Abuja.
By Jeffrey Agbo
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has launched a Special Independent Investigative Panel on Human Rights Violations in the Implementation of Counter Insurgency Operations in the North East (SIIP-North East).
NHRC Executive Secretary, Tony Ojukwu (SAN) made this known in a statement in Abuja.
The NHRC boss said that the panel will among other things focus on investigating the Reuters report which alleged that Nigerian military was involved in abortion of many pregnancies in the North East in the last 10 years.
Reuters, he said, had alleged that the military was involved in massacre of children as well as other Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) in the North East.
But the military refuted the allegations, 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.
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Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor, said: ”It’s outright nonsense. Their allusion is news to me. It never occurred. I never saw anything like that from Maiduguri down to Maimalamari Cantonment where I lived that is a major hospital for our personnel and their family. I am disappointed to say the least. So it is not true.”
Ojukwu, however, said the panel to probe the allegations would be inaugurated on February 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; Kemi Okonyedo, representing Women Rights Organisation, Azubuike Nwankenta, representing the 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).
Also listed are Dr Fatima Akilu (humanitarian expert, representing Civil Society), and Halima Nuradeen (psychologist, representing Youths).
