Falana Kicks as Buratai Gives Reasons for Operation Positive Identification
The Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai, yesterday said that the Operation Positive Identification (OPI) would not hinder the day-to-day activities of Nigerians, explaining that President Muhammadu Buhari was also aware of the exercise.
Buratai made this known while fielding questions from the House of Representatives’s Committee on Army in Abuja.
This is coming as a human rights lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), has dragged the Nigerian Army before a Federal High Court in Abuja, praying for an order stopping the planned Operation Positive Identification by the army.
Represented by the Chief of Civil-Military Affairs, Maj. Gen. Usman Muhammed, Buratai said that the army had submitted a detailed report on the OPI to the committee. He said that the military is involved in ‘Operation Lafia Dole’ in the
North East, adding that there are other subsidiary operations within the major operation.
Buratai said that the OPI is one of the subsidiary operations, which are ongoing in the North East zone.
According to him, based on credible intelligence on Boko Haram terrorists, they are no longer in their enclaves; but spreading out away from their traditional strongholds.
The Army Chief said that the OPI which started on Sept 22 in the North East, was based on the intelligence.
Buratai said that the military has a tradition of initiating operations towards the end of the year to reduce crime during the Yuletide.
“We have exercise Ayama Kpatuma in the North Central, Atilogwu Udo in the South
East and Crocodile Smile in the South South are aimed at addressing the security challenges in those zones. “It is a training exercise and at the same time, it is a true operation whereby we use the opportunity to carry out activities to checkmate criminality and crime within those areas.
“This time around, we feel that we can extend the OPI to some of these areas where we are going to conduct some of these exercises,” he said.
He explained that the OPI is an intelligence -activity based on credible information by which the army go to specific areas and effect arrests. “The exercise is nothing too different; it is something that is going to assist us add value to what we are doing in the North east,” he added. Buratai said that President Buhari was in support of the operation as well as the Minister of Defence and the Chief of Defence Staff.
Earlier, the Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Abdulrazak Namdas (APC-Adamawa) said that the House has it on good authority that the Army intends to commence OPI on November 1 nationwide.
Meanwhile, Falana (SAN), has dragged the Nigerian Army before a Federal High Court in Abuja, praying for an order stopping the planned Operation Positive Identification by the army.
Falana argued that the planned nationwide operation scheduled for November 1, to December 23, 2019, by which Nigerian citizens would be required to move about with means of identification, is unconstitutional, illegal, null and void.
In the suit which also has the Chief of Army Staff and the Attorney-General of the Federation as defendants, the human rights activist argued that the planned operation violates his right and that of other Nigerian citizens to liberty, as encapsulated in Section 35 respectively of the 1999 Constitution as amended and Article 6 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act, (Cap A10) Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004.
He filed along with the suit an order seeking an interim injunction restraining the three defendants from going on with the plan pending the hearing of the substantive suit.