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about 20 of the American soldiers have been individually prosecuted on their individual offences; like the man that urinated on top of an Iraqi prisoner. It wasn’t the Minister of Defence or the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) of the US that were indicted; why is Amnesty doing this kind of double standard? That is the question we have to ask. And even the timing is questionable. Why is Amnesty coming out now because they has been romancing with this report since the last four years and they waited, not until the current president came on board. Not until when the Nigerian military are on the verge of defeating these terrorists and the Nigerian government says we now want to once and for all finish all this business of crushing these terrorists. The president gave a clear directive to the Nigerian military to go ahead and degrade the capacity of these guys to cause more havoc and suddenly, the Amnesty just came up with a report that seems to be saying that only the human rights of the terrorists that are important to them. If you carry out a referendum now, I can tell that more than 80 per cent of Nigerians are not happy about this Amnesty report. The fact is that Amnesty is a globally respected non-governmental organization and that is why it’s even surprising why they are playing this kind of clandestine role to undermine the national security of Nigeria. Nobody is saying that when soldiers commit atrocities they should not be prosecuted, we are saying that you have to follow the rules and the proper due process of the law. If anybody commits an offence, charge that person and let the person face prosecution. For instance, in that report Amnesty says the CDS from 2012 up to the current chief of staff but the Amnesty left out CDS from 2010 to 2012. Amnesty also said that the deaths that occurred in military detention centres and who is in charge of military detention centres? The CDS is the one in charge of issues that deals with the military detention centres as it is directly under his own chain of control, but the Counter-Terrorism war is directly under the supervision of the National Security Adviser (NSA) and then you left that out, you didn’t mention NSA in that report. In fact, if you read the report, they just selected the GOCs, then former Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt-Gen Azubuike Ihejirika (rtd), the former CDS, Vice Admiral Ola Sa’ad Ibrahim (rtd), then his successor Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh and Lt-Gen. Kenneth Minimah (the current COAS). That is very nonsensical report. It is a report that is one sided and so biased.

Like you have cited the issue of the report being biased and one-sided, does it then support the views of some Nigerians who have wondered why the organization left out the issues of the alleged war crimes before, during and after the Nigerian civil war, Odi, Zaki Biam, and various ethno-religious and even the post-election violence if Amnesty is so interested in the issues of human rights violation in Nigeria?

Exactly! Oh yes. That brings us to this very important question of what happened during the Nigerian-Biafra civil war. If you want to address all these human right atrocities, I think we have to open up the books and let us examine everything so that we would settle this matter once and for all. It is important that that is done. It is important that the three million people that perished during the civil war be visited as well.

Why do you think Amnesty International is silent on these ones?

I think the Amnesty report is specific. The Amnesty issues this particular report specifically to address the issue of detention centres in the North East of Nigeria. So Amnesty does not just do a random report or general report like that. It is when events occur that they can go into the field and do their report. Maybe that is the reason why Amnesty did not border to look back about what happened in the past and do a comprehensive report.

But the agency has been in existence long before these events occurred; Nigerians are wondering why they didn’t issue any report. At least the Odi, Zaki Biam, Plateau, Kaduna and Benue crises are relatively new?

I am sure Amnesty may have done something on them. But what Nigerians are saying is that this report that they keep releasing every time to overheat the system when Nigeria is facing the most ferocious attacks from armed terrorists is not acceptable whatsoever.

What is the way forward on the war against terrorism and insurgency in the country?

The way forward is for the current president to put mechanism in place to fighting corruption, which is very important. I am of the opinion that it is because of the vices of corruption in the Defence and Police sector that have led Nigeria to where we are. Over the years, if you want to calculate in the last 30 years of military regime or the last 16years since democracy came into Nigeria, you would see the quantum of cash that have been released. I am talking about the appropriation act, the annual budget they release every year; the defence sector always takes the lion share of all these budgets and even in the implementation of those appropriation acts, the budgetary releases that go into defence sector is very humongous. So, what has happened to those huge cash that have been going into the security sector and why Nigeria at a point had to start begging and going through the black market to procure arms? It is a shame. I think if Buhari wants to write his name in gold and if he wants to leave a legacy for generation yet unborn, he should uncover and investigate the defence sector in Nigeria where a lot of thievery and corruption are taking place in the military and police. We have to ask the proper questions; where are all these monies that were allocated to them? Where have they gone to and why Nigeria was unable to fight Boko Haram that a lot of people have described as rag tag? Why is Nigeria that has one of the most organized and formidable fighting forces in Africa unable to defeat this Boko Haram? So these are some of the questions that the current government should look into.