Amnesty International on Monday
threw a poser on Twitter demanding to know sponsors of protests against them.
The human rights body and the
Nigerian government have been at loggerheads, especially over reports of
military and paramilitary activities.
On Monday via its handle, AI
posted photos of those it said were caught sharing money doled out to them
after a demonstration at its office.
AI tweeted: “A year ago, in March
2017 sponsored protesters invaded our office in Abuja for two days. They barred
us from moving in and out.
“At the end of each day of
protest they congregate at Unity Fountain and paid the protesters N1400 each.
Who is sponsoring them? #Nigeria.”
Recall that in May, the Nigerian
Military preempted the latest Amnesty International report, claiming it
chronicled “fictitious rape incidents” in Internally Displaced Persons camps in
the North East region of Nigeria.
Brigadier General John Agim,
Acting Director Defence Information, in a statement, said AI should be security
agencies’ partners rather than engaging in “falsehood, maligning the military
and painting officers and men in bad light”.
On the same day, the Nigerian
presidency toed a similar path by rubbishing the report yet to be made public
at that time.
The presidency stated that the
report is “inherently battling with credibility and fell vehemently short of
evidential narration”.
A statement by presidential
spokesman, Garba Shehu, claimed that the findings were short on credibility
because it did not contain factual leads that could have laid the foundation
for investigative actions.
It added that contents were
attributed to people but proper description of such people constituting the
source of information were not provided.
But all these failed to stop
Amnesty International from releasing the full report 24 hours later.
The body accused Nigerian
security forces of raping thousands of women and girls at the IDPs camps.
In the report released entitled
“They betrayed us”, the global rights group reported how the Nigerian military
and Civilian Joint Task Force (Civilian JTF) have separated women from their
husbands and confined them in remote ‘satellite camps’ where they have been
raped, sometimes in exchange for food.
Amnesty International said it has
collected evidence that thousands of people have starved to death in the camps
in Borno state, north-east Nigeria, since 2015.
“It is absolutely shocking that people who had
already suffered so much under Boko Haram have been condemned to further
horrendous abuse by the Nigerian military,” said Osai Ojigho, Director of
Amnesty International Nigeria.
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