Information and Culture Minster Lai Mohammed has described the protection of human rights as a cardinal objective of the Buhari administration.
Violation of rights is ,therefore, not a government policy, the minister said at a High-Level Roundtable organized by the Atlantic Council, an American think tank on international affairs, in Washington, DC, on Thursday.
The minister said the picture of impunity and complete disregard for extant laws and international obligations painted by Amnesty International, in a recent report, is not a true reflection of the character and ethics of the government of Nigeria or any of its agencies.
Since the counter-insurgency war started in 2009, Amnesty International has issued periodic reports on alleged human rights violations by the Nigerian military, with the latest of such reports bordering on violations of human rights and International Humanitarian Law by the Nigerian Armed Forces and other government agencies.
Alhaji Mohammed enumerated some of the measures taken by the administration to address human rights violation in the course of the counter-insurgency operations.
These include the establishment of Human Rights Desks in all military formations, the quarterly HumanRights/Military Dialogue, Training on Mainstreaming Human Rights into Counter-Insurgency Operations, and Court Martials of officers indicted for human rights violations.
‘’Very soon, the Federal Government will adopt a National Policy on the Protection of Civilians in conflict situations to further strengthen and entrench its constitutional practice of Protection of Civilians,’’ he said.
The minister also spoke on the counter-insurgency operations, insisting that Boko Haram has been badly degraded, hence it is incapable of carrying out organized massive attacks beyond using women and children to carry out suicide bombings against soft targets.
He said: ’’Many have queried how we could say Nigeria is winning the battle against Boko Haram when the insurgents have continued to carry out deadly attacks. However, to understand this, it is necessary to put things in context.
“When President Buhari was being sworn into office May 29, 2015, 24 local government areas making up a territory three times the size of Lebanon were firmly in the hands of Boko Haram.
“They hoisted their flag, collected taxes, installed their own emirs and administered a large swath of the territory. That is history now as not an inch of Nigeria’s territory is being administered or controlled by Boko Haram.
‘’Before the advent of this administration, Boko Haram could carry out attacks anywhere in the North East and beyond at a time of their own choosing. They attacked the UN Complex, the police headquarters, motor parks and a military barrack in the capital city of Abuja. That is now history.’’ he said.
Alhaji Mohammed also told the Roundtable that the incessant farmers-herders clashes were neither religious nor ethnic in nature, as they have been portrayed in some circles.
His words: “There is no question that this (conflict) is driven mostly by an increased contest for dwindling natural resources like land and water.
“This has been worsened by demographic pressure and climate change. Nigeria’s population in 1960 was 45 million, and this has ballooned to about 200 million in 2018, but the available resources have not grown at all. If anything, they have shrunk.”