Senator representing Borno South, Mohammed Ali Ndume has called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the Amnesty International (AI) to stop the double standard game and leave the Nigerian Army alone. Ndume was reacting to the allegation by the duo against the Nigeria Army over human right abuses while on the other side keeping silence on the pogrom unleashed by the Boko Haram on an innocent citizen.
The Senator stated thistoday in Abuja while having an interactive season with newsmenwhen his reaction was sorted on the allegation by the ICC and the AI against the Nigerian Army. Ali Ndume, being the chairman committee on the Army urged the Nigerian Army to ignore the distraction and concentrate on their primary responsibility of keeping the country safe.
According to the Senator, the same organisation who claim to be watchdog have perpetually kept mute over the activity of Boko Haram to an extent of refusing to label them terrorist group even when the whole world has agreed to that, instead of the ICC and AI shay away preferring to call the terrorist as non-state actors.
He said having come from the community that have been displaced by the terrorist in the last six years, he knows exactly how it pinches him, calling on the Amnesty international to be fair in their dealing to avoid becoming the enemy of good people. On the other hand, he enjoined Nigerian self-acclaimed celebrities and social media influencers to retrace their steps if they want posterity to remember them for good, calling on them to observe the character of a patriotic citizen.
The Senator said what the ICC is planning to do is to throw Nigeria into more chaos through frustrating the war on terror. Ndume said, “You can’t cry more than the bereaved and they cannot be the prosecutor without the plaintiff. How can they prosecute without the plaintiff?
“We have the Nigerian government, the federal parliament and the nation’s judiciary. If there are human rights abuses, it’s only when there is a failure on the part of the three arms of government to act swiftly that we can draw the attention of the international community to it.
“Nigerians are more concerned about securing their country. The Nigerian Army and the police are overwhelmed already.
“Honestly, we will stand up against that. We are not encouraging human rights abuses, we can’t say there are no such things but they are definitely isolated cases especially when the Boko Haram insurgency reached its peak in 2014.
The Borno born Senator continues, “There was a kind of confusion that led to the isolated cases of human rights abuses by the Nigerian Army and some of the armed forces.
“However, we stood up against it that time and that led to some soldiers’ court-martialed for human rights abuses. Some were even dismissed from the Army.
He explained “For example, for involving in rape cases. It’s not that the Nigerian Army is not doing anything about it.
“There is a department known as civil-military relations, created by the Nigerian Army to address such cases and they are doing well.
According to him, “The power of investigation lies with the National Assembly. Nigerians know where they would report cases of human rights abuses in case it happens anywhere. The Senator called on the Amnesty International and others leave us alone. Recalling that they are the same international organisations that refused to give us support needed to fight the insurgency.
