By Kingsley Omonobi
MAIDUGURI— Following repeated accusations by Amnesty International and other international rights groups of brutalization and human rights abuses by the Nigerian Army in the war against Boko Haram insurgents, the Nigerian Army has inaugurated a joint Nigerian Bar Association, NBA/Nigerian Army human rights monitoring team as part of measures to improve human rights protection and reduce abuses by military personnel.
Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Tukur Buratai, announced this, yesterday, at the NBA workshop on ‘Human Rights in times of Conflict,’ organized at the Maimalari Cantonment, Maiduguri.
According to Buratai, the Nigerian Army was established by the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and, therefore, guided by its laws in all its affairs.
While noting that the Nigerian Army respected and protected human rights even in the fight against terrorism and insurgency, Buratai said the Nigerian Army took human rights issue very seriously and trained its personnel both locally and abroad on the issue.
“The Nigerian Army has also partnered National Human Rights Commission and International Committee of Red Cross who visited Army detention facilities on regular basis,” he said in a statement signed by Col. Sani Usman, Acting Director, Army Public Relations..
He added that there was no safe haven for human rights violators in today’s Nigerian Army.
On his part, the President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Augustine Alegbe, at a workshop in Maiduguri, lauded the military’s counter-insurgency efforts in the North-East.
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