Nigeria Army Accuses Amnesty International Of Peddling “Fake News”

Nigeria’s army has dismissed Amnesty International allegations that its forces were involved in two incidents last year that resulted in the death hundreds of civilians as “fabrications”.

The rights group’s annual report says more than 150 people were killed in pro-Biafra clashes in the south-east in November.

In the other incident 240 people who were held in military detention centers at a facility at Giwa barracks in Maiduguri in the north-east died because of overcrowding, starvation and disease, Amnesty says.

The captives were fleeing Islamist Boko Haram militants who operate in the area, it says.

The army said the report was “orchestrated to blackmail and ridicule the Nigerian army”:

“[It ]is yet another in its series of spurious fabrications aimed at tarnishing the good image of the Nigerian military.
The report is rather contrived lies orchestrated to blackmail and ridicule the Nigerian Armed Forces which they have unsuccessfully tried to do in the past.
The truth is that the Nigerian military has always been open in its operations and do not hide its activities from the probing eye of the public. Amnesty International chose to bandy fabricated reports and concocted stories instead of seeking clarifications from the relevant authorities.”