Tell terrorists to surrender, DHQ tells human rights organisations

The Defence Headquarters yesterday charged the human rights community to deploy the same energy being used to mount pressure on the government to respect human rights provisions in the country on terrorists to lay down their arms.

The Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Lucky Irabor, gave the charge in Abuja at the commencement of a three-day training on African Commission Guidelines on Human Rights in Counter Terrorism Operations, organized by the Centre for Strategic Research and Studies of the National Defence College in collaboration with the Open Society Initiative for West Africa.

“What I need to put forward to you (human rights organisations) and of course the rest other actors within the human rights system is that, often times you find out that greater attention is given to the government forces that are dealing with terrorism with little or very minimal attention being given to the adversaries, the Boko Harm and the ISWAP.

“I believe the conflict can be easily resolved if or will be resolved faster than this if the same measure of pressure being brought on the government forces to respect Human Rights Commissions is brought on the adversaries to the extent that conflicts of such nature can be resolved, thereby reducing carnage being perpetrated against the innocent citizens, who in the first place are even aware of the contending issues that gave rise to the conflict,” he said.

Responding, Executive Secretary, National Human Rights Commission, Anthony Ojukwu, said only intelligence-driven counter-terrorism operations that would shield innocent citizens from the carnage of war could help the military more in its tasks.