The Presidency on Wednesday accused global human rights watchdog, Amnesty International (AI), of providing cover for suspected terrorists in Nigeria as well as dabbling in local politics.
It was reacting to AI’s recent allegation that the Nigerian government had been involved in what some media outlets called “enforced disappearances” of citizens, which was translated to mean people disappearing without traces.
Reacting to the allegation in a statement yesterday in Abuja by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, the Presidency accused AI of making itself a cover for people with terrorist tendencies, especially the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). Stressing that AI does not have the legal right to exist in Nigeria, the Presidency said even if it must, it ought to have a mechanism for vetting those it appoints to represent it in the country as well as the veracity of the feedbacks it gets from its representatives across Nigeria.
The statement said: “Amnesty International’s latest salvo at Nigeria is but more of the same.
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“Again, they have decided to side with terrorists, before the liberty of those they injure, displace and murder.
“Speaking the language of universal human rights, Amnesty International deploys it only in defence – even outright promotion – of those that violently oppose the Federal Government of Nigeria. Parroting the line of Nnamdi Kanu and IPOB, a proscribed terror organisation, they work to legitimise its cause to Western audiences. This puts them in bad company. Controversial American lobbyists are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to do the same, laundering IPOB’s reputation in Washington DC.
“IPOB (members) murder Nigerian citizens. They kill police officers and military personnel and set government property on fire. Now, they have amassed a substantial stockpile of weapons and bombs across the country. Were this group in a Western country, you would not expect to hear Amnesty’s full-throated defence of their actions. Instead, there would be silence or mealy-mouthed justification of Western governments’ action to check the spread of ‘terrorism’.
“Despite Amnesty’s self-proclaimed mandate to impartially transcend borders, unfortunately in Nigeria, they play only domestic politics. The international non-governmental organisation (NGO) is being used as a cover for the organisation’s (IPOB’s) local leaders to pursue their self-interests. Regrettably, this is not uncommon in Africa. There is nothing wrong with an activist stance; there are claims of neutrality, when all facts point to the opposite.
“Amnesty International has no legal right to exist in Nigeria. It must open a formal investigation into the personnel that occupy their Nigerian offices. They should reject the outrageously tendentious misinformation they receive and bring some semblance of due diligence to the sources they base their claims on. Currently, we see none.
“The Nigerian government will fight terrorism with all the means at its disposal. We will ignore Amnesty’s ranting, especially when it comes from an organisation that does not hold itself to the same standards it demands of others,” the statement said.
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