By Chibuike Nwabuko
Abuja (Sundiata Post) – Three former Boko Haram Members who claim to have served under the Commander of the Sect, Abubakar Shekau refuted allegations of abortion of 10,000 pregnancies, massacre of children, and deliberate violation of rights of women in the North East by the Nigerian military, saying they did not witness such atrocious acts.
Their position is contrary to the allegation leveled by an international news agency.
Sundiata Post recalls that Reuters had in December 2022 published a three-part report alleging that the Nigerian military had since 2013 carried out a secret, systematic, and illegal abortion of pregnancies involving women and girls in the country’s North East and other violations as earlier stated.
The trio, Kaka Mala, Goni Musa Mohammed, and Mohammed Adam made this rebuttal at Bulumkutu camp when the Special Independent Investigative panel on Human Rights Violations in the Counter Insurgency Operations in the North East visited the area as part of its fact-finding mission.
Testifying before the 7-Member panel chaired by Justice Abdu Aboki (rtd), one of them Kaka Mala told the panel that his duty used to be fighting for the sect and teaching captured women about the Holy Koran.
He exonerated officers and soldiers of any allegations of abortion of pregnancies, the massacre of children, and other forms of Sexual and Gender Based Violence that Reuters alleged against the Nigerian military in the course of fighting insurgency in Nigeria’s North East.
In his own account before the panel led by the former Justice of Nigeria’s apex court, Goni Musa Mohammed testified that he used to be one of the Commanders of Boko Haram operating in Bama Local Government Area and environs revealing that about seven (7) years ago a bomb blast exploded in New Marte which saw him leaving the sect.
According to the Ex-Boko Haram fighter who has four wives and ten children, the said bomb blast in New Marte marked the end of his fight for the sect, clarifying further that soldiers do not kill children and that his wives are with their children who are currently schooling within the camp.
The third one, Mohammed Adam told the panel that he operated within the Sambisa forest while he fought on the side of the dreaded sect and that he had to tear his secondary school certificate in line with the ideology of the Boko Haram sect.
Adam, however, disclosed that although he did not witness the alleged massive killing of children reportedly christened Boko Haram children, he pointed out that some children died in Giwa Barracks as a result of over-crowding while he was being held in the Barracks before it was attacked by Boko Haram insurgents.
