It took years before the West and international organisations listed Boko Haram among the foreign terrorist organisations. Boko Haram has killed many innocent Nigerians: among them, women, children, religious worshippers. But what your organisation is interested in is the alleged abuse of human rights by our military.

Is your organisation telling us that these helpless Nigerians, now dead because of Boko Haram, did not have any human rights? Or that the Boko Haram group has the right to keep on killing innocent citizens unchallenged?

Why should your lopsided report come up now that the Nigerian military is already winning the war against Boko Haram if not to weaken and discourage our military? Where were you when Boko Haram slit the throats of innocent and helpless schoolchildren at Buni Yadi, Yobe state? Where was your organisation when Chibok girls were kidnapped by the same Boko Haram sect? Where were you when the Boko Haram sect was winning the war because we lacked sophisticated military equipment to tackle them?

When your organisation was established in 1961, why did you not deem it necessary to revisit how King Jaja of Opobo was poisoned with a cup of tea? In case you don’t know that story: when European powers designated Opobo as a British territory due to the outcome of the 1884 Berlin conference, King Jaja refused to cease taxing British traders. Henry Hamilton Johnson, a British vice consul, invited Jaja to negotiations in 1887. When Jaja arrived, the British arrested him and tried him in Accra, the then-Gold Coast. Thereafter, he was taken to London. In 1891, Jaja was granted permission to return to Opobo but died en route, allegedly poisoned with a cup of tea. Did your organisation not consider that King Jaja’s rights were abused, or did he not have any rights?

When America invaded sovereign countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, where were your reports? Where was your report when there were massacres in Odi, Bayelsa state, and Zaki Ibiam, Benue state?

The way some international organisations and some Western countries are behaving towards the fight against this deadly Boko Haram group is sending a wrong signal that Boko Haram may have international sponsors, possibly to achieve the much-expected disintegration of Nigeria, since the 2015 general elections did not serve that purpose. To me, the report, if anything, comes at the end or when all actions have been concluded. How come your report came up while our military is having an upper hand against the Boko Haram? Was the report intended to distract our military so that Boko Haram could regroup and start launching their vicious attacks on citizens the same way they did when some people claiming to be Boko Haram secretaries and chieftains deceived the immediate past government with amnesty negotiations?

Boko Haram started out by bombing churches, believing that Christians would carry out reprisal attacks on Muslims and their mosques. When that did not happen, they started bombing mosques, believing that Muslims would attack Christians. But that still failed. They are currently bombing markets and other public places, and I don’t want to believe that this recent report is aimed at dividing Nigerians along regional lines. The Igbos are already crying foul why their own Azubuike Ihejirika (the only Igbo to occupy such post since we returned to democracy in 1999) was indicted, and the Niger Deltans  are also  waiting for Kenneth Minimah to be ‘victimized’. This is because after the Odi and Zaki Ibiam massacres, the then-chief of army staff was not indicted by your organisation. I don’t want to believe that those that predicted the disintegration of Nigeria are also working for its actualisation. Some Nigerians are  beginning to believe that this AI report is aimed at either distracting the military in their final fight to exterminate the Boko Haram sect from Nigerian soil, or to further polarise Nigerians along regional lines hence actualising the much-expected disintegration.

I want AI to name one country whose military does not abuse human rights. I equally want to see those members of the military that use court injunctions to liberate a town that is held by terrorists. I will be glad if AI told me which country fights wars without civilian casualties. Watching the online commentary on how the former Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, was captured, I saw the American soldiers use torture to force his bodyguards into showing to his hiding place. Why didn’t the soldiers use court injunction to get where Saddam was hiding? As a history enthusiast, I know how international collaborations helped in the disintegration of the former USSR because much-touted world powers saw the union as a threat; but I still thank God that Russia, the remnant of that union, is still a threat to those that worked for the splitting of the now-defunct USSR.

It was reported that the Nigerian military officers that revolted sometime ago did so because of the lectures they received from the American intelligence officers who came to train them. Sequel to that, the immediate past government terminated that bilateral agreement between Nigeria and America. Is it not preposterous that the same US government that refused to sell sophisticated military equipment to us to fight Boko Haram was ready and willing in sending their military intelligence officers to train Nigerian soldiers to fight Boko Haram?

AI should map out the strategies on how every country’s military should carry their operations without abusing human rights. Is it possible to liberate a town held by terrorists without any civilian casualty? Also, I cannot envisage the military extracting information from a captured terrorist who disguised as a civilian with a court injunction. I still wonder how it is possible to be gentle with civilians who are either sympathetic to terrorists or help them escape and/or carry out their nefarious activities.

If AI are sincere, they should be thinking of how to bring justice to the children, pregnant women, the elderly that were murdered in cold blood by Boko Haram. What of the helpless and poor children who are now orphans due to Boko Haram activities, or innocent Nigerians who are daily sent to their early graves by Boko Haram? An Igbo adage says that one does not pursue a rat when one’s house is on fire. Dear people behind Amnesty International, I think what Nigerians want now is any report that would help us to exterminate Boko Haram. Once that is achieved, we will start addressing any alleged human rights abuse within and by our military.