The Yobe state government has declared that it is unthinkable to hold that the state collaborated with the Nigerian military in carrying out alleged abortion of 10,000 pregnancies, massacre of children and deliberate violation of rights of women in the North East.
An international news agency, Reuters had in December 2022 published a three-part report alleging that the military was involved in a secret, systematic and illegal abortion programme ostensibly to deal with the issue of stigma among women impregnated by Boko Haram fighters and their offspring.
The Attorney General of the state and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Saleh Samanja who stated this when Members of the Special Independent Investigative Panel on Human Rights Violation in Counter Insurgency Operations in the North East visited the state, said that the allegation was not true.
Samanja who said that he was hearing the allegation for the first time added that it is unbelievable that Reuters made the allegation without caring to verify from the state government.
Testifying further before the 7-Member panel chaired by Justice Abdu Aboki (rtd), he said no responsible government will sanction senseless killing of women and children or visit the sin of the father on his children in the name of erasing alleged stigma associated with Boko Haram.
The AG said that if such mindless act was committed in the state, he would have known because the state runs “Sexual Assaults Referral Centre (SARC)” that would have received complaints.
He said that SARC was set up when he served as the Permanent Secretary and he doubled as the Pioneer Chairman of the Centre, which according to him handled various complaints relating to Sexual and Gender Based Violence, including rape.
The Chief Legal Officer of Yobe state said that as the then Chairman of SARC, he was well-positioned to detect any foul play by the military working in the state even as he noted that the essence of the Centre was to check “the rampant cases of rape in the state, which has now abated and not because of insurgency”.
In a related development, the Executive Secretary of Yobe State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), Dr. Goje Mohammed while responding to questions put to him by the Secretary of the panel, Mr. Hilary Ogbonna, said that SEMA collaborates with other stakeholders to ensure that returnees were given psychosocial support and other humanitarian assistance.
He denied any possibility of SEMA getting involved in the allegation of termination of pregnancies, saying that the agency was concerned about the wellbeing of the vulnerable group and could not have abandoned this noble cause and focus on aborting pregnancies.