A special board of Inquiry set up by the Nigerian army comprising Human Rights bodies; NGOs etc has said that says its troops are not guilty of accusations of extrajudicial killing of members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and Boko Haram insurgent group.
This came to light on Wednesday when the Army made public the findings of the board it set up to investigate alleged gross human rights abuse leveled against its personnel by Amnesty International (AI).
AI rolled out series of accusations, noting that the army is involved in “human rights abuse, excessive use of force and extra-judicial killing of terrorists in the north-east and members of IPOB in the south-east”.
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At a press conference in Abuja, the Chief of Civil/Military Affairs at Army headquarters, Major General Nuhu Angbazo while presenting the findings, stated that the army was not guilty of the accusations.
The Board of Inquiry however pointed out that members of the Boko Haram sect, for instance, were not allowed access to legal representation.
It also noted that “the right to counsel is fundamental to basic fairness that should be recognized even with respect to terrorism cases”.
“The board found that the process determining the legal status of Boko Haram detainees in all military detention facilities appear to have been left to the Nigerian army alone”.
“We note in particular the difficulty encountered by the Nigerian Army in transferring detainees in Giwa Barracks in Maiduguri detention facility to the Maiduguri maximum prisons to ease congestion in the facility” the board said.
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