Military Fingers Atiku In Alleged Plot To Indict Armed Forces For Genocide

The Defence Headquarters has raised the alarm in which it fingered a former Vice President Atiku Abubakar as the suspected sponsor of a massive campaign of calumny to discredit and indict the the country's armed forces of committing genocide in North East Nigeria. Director of Defence Information, Major General Chris Olukolade in a statement today though did not categorically mentioned Atiku's name but in a veiled reference said the military high command has "been alerted of a plot by some interest groups to embark on a renewed campaign aimed at attracting international  condemnation and  indictment of  the Nigerian military and its operations in the Northern part of the country. The campaign which is to rely heavily on doctored and falsified audio visual materials, some of which are already trending in the social media, is to be coordinated and funded by a prominent political leader whose state is presently under the State of  Emergency (a veiled reference to Atiku who bare 24 hours ago cautioned the military against using security matters to do public relations stunt for government)." Other parts of the statement read: "The details of the plan which is already being fine-tuned by a group of media practitioners,  is to be presented for the final ratification and funding by the political figure. The design is expected to forcefully whip up sentiments of genocide allegedly targeted against a particular religious group.  The planners of this multi-media crusade also hope to use it to gain some mileage in the drive to secure international attention as they have not achieved this sufficiently despite previous efforts. The programme which is also meant to reinforce the ongoing media campaign against the military was adopted as an alternative by those who are bent on politicizing the ongoing counter terrorists operations in the northern part of the country. "It will be recalled that a newspaper, apparently testing the waters, last week published some of the doctored pictures which the Defence Headquarters instantly repudiated, pointing out that they do not represent activities or operations of the Nigerian military. "This Headquarters wishes to reiterate its rejection of pictures and video footages from unverifiable sources claiming to reflect activities or so called  atrocities purportedly perpetrated by Nigerian security forces. They do not reflect or depict the true state of affairs or operations of Nigerian military or any of the security forces. The public is advised to watch out and not allow themselves to be hoodwinked by these acts of infamy orchestrated by this desperate group. "Once again, it must be emphasized that the dastardly acts of terrorism are against all Nigerians and all peace loving people all over the world.  No amount of propaganda by apologists of terror group can justify the evil acts of terrorism by attempting to cast the Nigerian military and security forces in bad light."