Acting Director of Defence Information, Brig.-Gen. John Agim has accused politicians of arming thugs to unleash mayhem on hapless Nigerians and turning around them to label such thugs as herdsmen.
He made this known in an interview with The Punch published on Sunday.
Agim, who did not name any state or particular politician, made this known while speaking on herdsmen/farmers clashes in Taraba, Zamfara, Nasarawa and Benue.
He disclosed that some arrested thugs identified politicians as their backers.
He said, “The problem which the state governments (not only in Taraba) have with the military is that when the military came in, they thought the soldiers were coming to enforce their laws. Is that the military’s responsibility? If the military goes in and says it wants to enforce the state’s anti-grazing laws, then it means the military is doing the work of the state government. The military is not supposed to enforce those laws. So we told them we are coming to make sure that there is security.
“It was also discovered that there were a lot of people carrying arms, including the herdsmen. So we said nobody should carry arms; anybody who carries arms shall be arrested. But they (the state governments) don’t want their own people to surrender their arms.
“During this period, we also discovered that some politicians were using their thugs against another community within the same state, and they made it looked as if herdsmen were attacking the people. Some of these people were arrested.
“For instance, in a local government area, there are two communities fighting against each other and we arrested some people with arms. We did not want to blow it up because it will be misinterpreted.
“Some of the suspects arrested and stopped from carrying out that vandalism told us that some politicians sent them against another community to carry out those attacks. So the state government said they did not agree with the army panel, but they have not given any cogent reasons.”
The defence spokesman also questioned the motive of Amnesty International which in its latest report accused soldiers of raping women in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in Borno.
He said, “We have investigated those claims. Last week, I was in Maiduguri, Borno State, where I asked journalist to enter the IDP camps with me to verify these allegations. To start with, the Nigerian Army is not just critical about the AI’s report; when you do something improper, and you repeat it over and over again, one begins to wonder what your intention is.
“As a result of AI and other national and international human rights organisations’ reports, we don’t deploy soldiers in conflict areas without them undergoing training in human rights and laws in armed conflicts at Jaji, Kaduna State, where we have a peacekeeping centre handling those areas. We tell the troops that if you violate human rights, you will be punished. In Maiduguri, there is a court martial waiting for any soldier who commits any human rights abuses.
“We also have the human rights desk in the Defence Headquarters, army headquarters and in the operational fields to ensure that all our activities conform to the international standard on human rights.
“In the AI report under contention, did the organisation report anything that is new? No. it was the events of 2015 and 2016 brought forward and they packaged it as if these things just happened.
“After we left Maiduguri, there is a group of IDP women under one movement who alleged again that we put words into their mouths to deny that they were raped. But I never did that.”
“I have challenged the journalists they should not wait for the military to take them to the IDPs camps. I have asked them to go there and carry out discreet investigations. We also went to the United Nations Children’s Fund; we went around the medical centres and hospitals around the IDP camps to confirm if there was any incident of rape involving soldiers. We didn’t find any.
“In the IDPs camp we went, there are 35,199 people and from five local government areas. In the second camp we went, there were two LGAs, and 7,850 people and they all said nothing such as rape by soldiers.