Reuters And The Burden Of Proof
By: Zagazola Makama
The Reuters report, early December, 2022, accusing the Nigerian military of forcing the abortion of the pregnancies of over 10,000 Boko Haram female abductees since 2013 has raised several towering questions over the credibility of the 171 years old global news agency.
Reuters reported on 7th December, 2022: "Since at least 2013, the Nigerian military has conducted a secret, systematic and illegal abortion programme in the country's northeast, ending at least 10,000 pregnancies among women and girls, a Reuters investigation has found. Many had been kidnapped and raped by Islamist militants. Resisters were beaten, held at gunpoint or drugged into compliance, witnesses say."
Reuters, according to the investigative report, interviewed 30 such women and girls to arrive at the conclusion that "at least 10,000" pregnancies were forcedly aborted by the Nigerian military.
The report triggered several questions that drew a sharp contrast between the situation the Reuters investigation portrayed and the situation in reality that obtains across the terrorised Northeast over the last ten years of the Boko Haram militancy.
State Actors and active participants in the humanitarian crisis precipitated by the Boko Haram militancy across the northeast have expressed bafflement at what they have described as the utter untruths of the Reuters investigative report which, they suggest, was invisibly, and quite invincibly, sponsored by international and domestic conflict entrepreneurs as one of calculated attempts at frustrating the Nigerian government and the military in the current 'marvelously successful' offensives against the northeast's terrorising militants.
The calculation, they believe, is to stir the ire of the International community assisting Nigeria with the required weapons to combat terror to not only halt such assistances but to also smear the country's authorities and its military with the tar brush of criminality, in contravention of international laws.
Already, a U.S. Senator, Jim Risch, who is the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has requested a review of U.S. security assistance and cooperation programs
to the Nigerian Military. This, it is believed, is to pitch the International Criminal Court against a weaponless Nigeria, weakening the country to a point where while it is grappling with its image at the global level, the conflict entrepreneurs would be finetuning and perfecting strategies for the perpetuation of the northeast terror ad infitum.
"The Reuters report has many pit-holes," Mairo Mandara, the Special Adviser and Coordinator to the Governor of Borno State on Sustainable Development, Partnership and Humanitarian Supports, maintains, asserting, "the report was not scientific."
Mairo, who was the former Country Representative for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and also supervised over 260 International Non-Governmental Organisations (INGOs) presently providing humanitarian support to Borno State, raised questions on the motives behind the report published in 2022.
She queried: "Why keep the report of a crime that was committed nine years ago until now? Was there any physical force during the abortion? What is the motive behind keeping the report of such a draconian action until now?
The civil society activist continued: "The National Human Rights Commission(NHRC), should conduct an independent investigation on the matter."
She maintained that the Reuters report is calculated at coinciding with the visit of the International Crime Court(ICC) officials to Nigeria to investigate what they termed as "Nigerian military atrocities" in order to rope them into War crimes.
Mandara said in 2013 the military never had access to Boko Haram enclaves, let alone find any women to abort their pregnancies, querying: "Where did the military meet these pregnant women to abort their pregnqncies? Where was the abortion site?"
She maintained that by keeping the report for nine years, (if they knew), Reuters, by Nigerian law, is complicit in the reported crime. Believing that someone sponsored the Reuters report, she queried: "Who is sponsoring the report?"
No Concrete Evidence - 200 CSOs
Bulama Abiso is the Chairman of the Network of Civil Societies in Borno State. He coordinates the activities of more than 200 Non Government Organisations across the North-Eastern state's of Borno,Yobe and Adamawa.
"We saw the damning Reuters report," he admitted, maintaining, "There is no concrete evidence that such a thing (forced abortion by the military) has ever happened.
"We as the network of Civil Society Organisations have been on ground since the inception of this crises. From the inception upto date, none of the over 200 members of our network, has ever informed us of these atrocities on ground.
"When we heard of the report, we
immediately set up our own investigative mechanism through the Community And Accountability Forum by some of our organisations, where we tasked various peace groups to furnish us with information on this allegation, but as I am talking to you, nobody has come up with any concrete evidence showing that such a thing has ever happened in Borno state.
"We also liase with the heads of the traditional council across the 27 LGAs to help us identify any victim of such atrocities but nobody has come faword to complain," Abiso said.
He said: "We are taken aback by the report," querying the motive, "Why now?"
Abiso believed that those "probably" benefitting from the Boko Haram insurgency are frustrated by what he described as the successes currently achieved by the military in the terror war as well as the degree of peace and security consequently achieved, characterised by what he described as the massive return of thousands of IDPs to their ancestral homes.
He believed that some people are determined to truncate the efforts of government and military at fighting for total peace and security in the northeast.
"We will not accept any truncation of efforts at restoring peace and security in the northeast," he warned.
Hamsatu Allamin is the Executive Director of the NGO, Allamin Foundation for Peace. She also heads the Social Networks of Victims of Disappearances and Survivors of Boko Haram Abductions, where she managed and conducts periodic meetings with at least 9,000 women associated with the Boko Haram violence.
Allamin said having resided and operated in the Boko Haram conflict terrain since its beginning in 2009, "I have never for once heard anybody, either a victim or a victim's relations, talking about forced abortion by the military."
She continued: "I can talk to you about different atrocities committed by the military during the Boko Haram insurgency, but I have never heard of the military committing forced abortion.
"If there was anything of that nature, I can assure you that I will be the first to go on the media to speak against it because having sat down and analysed it (the Reuters report), honestly, to me, it makes no sense."
She queried: "At that time (2013), the abortions were said to have been committed, how organised were the military?"
She recalled that Boko Haram militants started abducting women late 2012, explaining that by 2013, they were only in their Sambisa enclaves, and they had not started organising themselves and they had not settled down enough to gather such a massive population of women and girls whose pregnancies the military would abort.
"There were alot of female survivors coming out of captivity with pregnancies, and they were kept at Giwa Barracks where they delivered their babies," Allamin recalled, querying, "Why didn't they (the military) abort the pregnancies?"
Allamin recalled further: "I had thousands of women released from captivity and military facility with their pregnancies and delivered in my hands, but I have never had of anything about abortion by the military."
She maintained: The burden of proof now lies with the persons (Reuters) who conducted the investigation," saying, "People like us working in the field, especially Human Rights officials, are interested in even knowing the reality of the situation."
Allamin was not certain on the motive or sponsorship of the report.
"We cannot run away from the reality that every conflict has its sponsors; and many people, internally and externally, have become conflict entrepreneurs," she said, maintaining, "Even among us Nigerians, there are many actors who will never want this conflict to end."
Allamin postulated: "Boko Haram conflict has become an economy itself; many people have become contractors etc due to Boko Haram and, therefore, they will never want this conflict to end."
She called on Nigerians and the global community to challenge the report.
"The abortion report concerns all of us Nigerians, not only the military," she said, believing, "if it happens to be true, it will affect this country (Nigeria) seriously."
Allamin advised the Nigerian authorities to fish out the reporters to prove to the country that the military committed the forced abortion.
"If they cannot prove it, then there are consequences," she warned.
In a separate chat, Babashehu Abdulkareen, the overall Chairman of the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF), a government-backed militia fighting in collaboration with the Nigerian military, described the report as a "fiction".
Babashehu said that the CJTF has no fewer than 26,000 members spread across the nooks and crannies of 24 Local Governments Areas in Borno, working toward ensuring that the communities in the North-East are safe from possible attacks by Boko Haram insurgents.
He said that since 2012, when its members picked up clubs to chase out Boko Haram from their communities to Sambisa and the Lake Chad enclaves, nobody has ever reported such cases to the CJTF.
“The Civilian JTF and the military are the first respondent's in every situation. We are also the first to receive all surrendered victims who returned from Boko Haram enclaves.
"There are mechanisms set up to ensure that the victims are well taken care of, especially by the military, whose responsibility is to profile them and ensure their safety. Shortly after the profiling, they are handed over to the Borno State government for rehabilitation and reintegration.
“After their reintegration, they will be handed over to the Chairmen of their respective LGAs as well as the leadership of the CJTF who will monitor their day-to-day activities,” he said.
Babashehu queried: "So at what point did they (military) abort pregnancy and in which part of the state without anyone knowing about it? If the military have been killing or aborting the babies of their victims, how would the over 82,064 Boko Haram fighters with members of their families surrendered to the troops?"
He disclosed: “There are over 20,000 women who returned with their husbands while some returned on their own. These women also have about 41,040 children, comprising those that were born at the rehabilitation camps and those they returned with from the enclaves of the insurgents.
“Recently, we counted about six women who were conceived in the camps. When they gave birth, the matrons and the health workers catered for their immediate needs. They provided them with clothing, food, sanitary pads and everything they needed to support their needs. As we speak, four among the wives named their children after me. The latest was this week, when the wife of one ex-militant leader, named "Jundullah" conceived at the rehabilitation camp." he said.
Corroborating the claims, Dr. Muhammed Guluze, The Permanent Secretary of the Borno State Ministry of Health, described the report as outright mischief and misleading with the intention to malign the state and the country.
Guluze said: “I was the Medical Director at the State Specialist Hospital in 2013. Of course the State Specialist Hospital was fully functional in 2013, but such a thing never happened, and can never happen, in a hospital of the status of State Specialist Hospital.
“We have ethics governing our practices and you don’t just cause abortion or carry out abortion without indication. Even at a worst case scenario, which necessitated evacuation, there must be medical indication for risk or perhaps the pregnancy has untoward effects on the health of the mother, in which respect, to save the mother, the doctor is obliged to abort a pregnancy.
"And that is the only reason why there should be an abortion. Otherwise, it is unethical to do any abortion and it cannot happen in a hospital of that nature. So it's like the Reuters report was a mischievous one aimed at mentioning the hospital as one of the centers where this type of criminal act was carried out.
"Abortion is criminal to do outside the medical indication. And to the best of my knowledge, nothing of such has happened in the state Specialist Hospital and the records are there for anyone to see.
“The story is false, and it was written with malicious intent against the state or the hospital in this regard. I discountenance this type of report and we welcome any kind of investigation that will be commissioned to look into the records of the hospital. I want to assure you that we will come out clean in this regard.
“I don’t know how they arrived at the 10,000 figure. It means that every female Boko Haram captive had undergone abortion, which is not possible. It also means that atleast three pregnancies are being aborted every day for this number of years, which could have been known to everybody."
He queried: How did they (Reuters) get their data? is it by estimation or what investigation did they carry out to arrive at 10,000? Where did they get the data from? What data was available to them to conclude that this numbers of abortion was committed? In their report they said they interviewed 30 women, and they arrived at 10,000? What type of investigation is that?"
Guluze maintained: "For this significant large numbers of abortion to be committed within this short period of time, it will have been glaring to everybody, not just the organization that reported it. It would have been glaring to more than 52 partners supporting the health sector in the state, including six United Nations Agencies - WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, UNOCHA and IOM. So I don’t see how an outrageous figure of 10,000 abortion will be carried out without anybody mentioning it.
"Every two weeks, we have a coordination meeting at the Public Health Emergency Operation Center, and all health issues are tabled for discussions; to move the state foward. The challenges and the inadequacies of the system are being brought forward for discussion too, and never at any time, that anybody, whether partner or government, raised the issue of criminal abortion going on in this state over this period of time.
"We started having IDPs in 2014, the IDPs coming from various Local Government Areas. But we started having rescued captives in 2016. For even somebody to date back such incidence to 2013, it means he doesn’t even know what he was saying. At that time, there were no IDPs and no rescued female captives. So I don’t see how this report will be authentic.
"And even when there were IDPs and rescued female captives, we had, and still have, an existing referral system in the camps where ambulances are stationed in mobile clinics with our healthcare providers to transport any patient to secondary healthcare facilities for adequate attention."
He queried: "So why would a soldier escort any pregnant rescued female captive IDP to a hospital?", explaining, "Their (soldiers) work is mainly to support in protecting the IDPs and they are always positioned outside the camps."
Dr Babashehu Muhammed, The Medical Director of the Special Specialist Hospital, said that the hospital has ever since maintained a CCTV network, and everyone is free to come and review the films, to see if any soldier was ever seen coming in with any pregnant victim for abortion.
"We have also carried out our investigations to know if it was really carried out illegally. But out of the 700 practitioners in various departments in the hospital, nobody has ever heard of such thing called illegal abortion.
"The report was more like a media trial without substantial evidence. No staff in this hospital will be ready to risk his job by carrying out such a criminal act.
"We, therefore, challenge the media organisation to prove their claims with concrete evidence or even publish names of those involved. We are available for any type of investigation by anybody."
It Can't Happen In Our IDP Camps - Borno SEMA
Yabawa Kolo,The Chairman of the Borno State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), argued that it was not possible for such atrocities to be perpetrated in the IDP camps in Borno State, due to the fact that the camps are situated in an environment enmeshed with formidable response mechanisms and accountability to gender violence.
Kolo said every camp has a Camp Coordination and Camp Management Committee, comprising such organizations and agencies as the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF), International Federation of Women Lawyers, Ministry of Justice, Police, National Agency for the Prohibition of trafficking in persons (NAPTIP), Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) and the National Emergency Management Agency(NEMA).
The Borno SEMA Chief said there are other international partners working in the protection sector such as the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations Development Programme, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and the United Nations Population Fund.
She argued that under the "sharp watchful eyes" of these organizations and international agencies with impeccable reputation for adherence to laws, such atrocious acts could never have happened, especially at a time when the eyes of the entire global community was on the terror-rattled North-East Nigeria.
Reuters Report Lacked The Required Credibility - Borno NUJ Chairman
The Chairman of the Borno State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Dauda Iliya, dismissed the Reuters secret abortion report as lacking the required credibility.
"As far as the union is concerned, journalist have been covering this Theartre since 2009, and we have never heard of any facility in which the military runs secret abortions.
"Over 400 journalists, including over 30 correspondents of various foreign and Nigerian media stations, operate in Borno State," he disclosed, saying, "if it (secret abortion) really happened over the last 12 years of the insurgency, one of these journalists would have reported it."
The union leader stressed: "It is very strange that none of the over 400 journalists in Borno state, despite their exposure, experience and contact, has ever uncovered and reported such things. It (the report) came to us as a very huge surprise."
Iliya continued: "The military has many facilities it uses in the rehabilitation of repentant Boko Haram terrorists and commanders. Sometimes journalists are given access into these facilities; but we have never heard of any secret or forced abortion in the course of our interactions with the inmates and their families."
He argued that more than 82,000 insurgents, their families and children have so far surrendered, and out of this number, more than 40,000 are children.
"If truly the military carries out, or has ever carried out, secret abortion, how will you get this number of children?", Iliya queried.
He remarked: "I don't want to say the report is baseless, but it lacked the required credibility."
The Military Doesn’t Support Pregnancy Termination
In separate chats with the Commander 7 Division Medical Services and Hospital, Lt. Col. Adeniyi Ogunsakin, and Sergeant Caesar Ojoko, Representative of 7 Division Medical Hospital at the Giwa barracks health clinic for inmates, said as military health workers, they are always concerned about the condition of terrorists’ wives and their daughters arrested by troops, with pregnancies.
"We don’t terminate pregnancies. It is not a global best practice. As such, there is no way the military will support such an act to be carried out by medical officers in any of its health facilities," Lt. Col. Ogunsakin argued.
"In our hospitals, We have CCTV cameras that monitor everybody that comes in and goes out of the hospital. In fac, we are able to pick the sounds of those who come for their drugs through the HDMI", he explained.
He described the secret abortion report as "false", challenging everyone to produce proof.
There Has Never Been Any Report On Alleged Secret Abortion - Police
The Borno State Commissioner of Police, Abdu Umar, said there was no record of any reported incidents associated with the military alleged to have carried out forced abortion.
Umar noted that the police was the only agency with the mandate to investigate rape cases as well as to prosecute illegal abortion perpetrators, noting that any one caught engaging in such act would be liable to imprisonment for fourteen years.
The CP quoted: "The criminal code Act, section 228, says Any person who, with intent to procure miscarriage of a woman whether she is or is not with child, unlawfully administers to her or causes her to take any poison or other noxious thing, or uses any force of any kind, or uses any other means whatever, is guilty of a felony, and is liable to imprisonment for fourteen years.
"Section 229 says Any woman who, with intent to procure her own miscarriage whether she is or is not with child, unlawfully administers to herself any poison or other noxious thing, or uses any force of any kind, or uses any other means whatever, or permits any such thing or means to be administered or used to her, is guilty of a felony, and is liable to imprisonment for seven years."
The Police Commissioner maintained: "No Divisional officer under the command has ever received any complaints on alleged forced abortion by the Nigerian military or any other persons."
Umar said that when the report came up, the command tasked its men from the monitoring and evaluation units, Intelligence units, Human Right desk as well as the Criminal Investigations Department, to investigate and come up with the summary of all the cases of human right abuses recorded in the state from 2013 to 2023.
He noted that of all the cases of human rights abuses running into thousands, there was only one case recorded in 2018 related to rape of 14 year old IDP, reported to the police, has to do with the military.
According to the CP, the military personnel was later charged with disobedience to standing order, assault and defilement, by
Theatre Command Special Court Martial and dismissed for the crime.
He was later, transferred to the police command to face criminal prosecution.
We're Not Aware of Secret Abortion By Military - FIDA
The International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA), a Non-Governmental, Non-Profit Organization made up women lawyers, with the mission to promote, protect and preserve the rights, interests and wellbeing of women and children, said it is not aware that any of such thing happened in Borno State since 2013.
Zara Yaqub, The FIDA Vice Chairperson in Borno State, said: "I am an expert in Gender Dimensions and Criminal Justice Response to Terrorism, and in this capacity, I have been working closely with the military over the years, but I have never come across or heard the military carrying out secret abortion on Boko Haram female captives."
We Aid Safer Family Planning Services In North-East Nigeria - MSION
Marie Stopes International Organisation Nigeria (MSION) has for many years, been providing sexual reproductive health services across all the states of Nigeria, including Borno.
MSION has been delivering its services since it opened its first clinic in Nigeria in 2009.
“In doing so, we became one of the few providers of short-term, long-acting and reversible voluntary family planning services, including permanent contraception in Nigeria, and through the hard work of our dedicated teams are helping to increase awareness and contraception usage across the country.
“We continue to extend the services we offer in Nigeria to increase the uptake of sexual and reproductive health services”, Mr Jonathan Nachia, the MSION Research Monitoring and Evaluation Officer in charge of North-East, disclosed this at a one-day meeting with stakeholders from the health sector in Borno.
Our investigations, corroborated by MSION, show that the International NGO has averted no fewer than 6,344 abortions, and 5,719 unsafe abortions, 79 maternal deaths, and 4,581 mortality and morbidity, among others in Borno state through the provision of family planning services for women in Borno state, thus preventing unplanned pregnancies and the consequences of unsafe abortion that could result from such pregnancies.
It has also claimed to have averted 15,317 unintended pregnancies through the provision of family planning services to 59,452 clients in Borno state.
The INGO recently said that it reached 3.1million clients with sexual and reproductive health services in Nigeria in 2021.
Impeccable anonymous source working with Marie Stopes said the INGO was deeply shocked by the mention of their name in the forceful abortion allegation.
The source argued that the INGO conducts its operations in strict adherence to International and Nigerian laws as well as International best practices in the provision of healthcare services. It, therefore, can neither indulge in illegal abortion, nor aid any person or organization to perpetrate it.
The name of the game is proof. The Nigerian government and military await Reuters to provide proof or evidence on its –'secret abortion' report. This is imperative in the interest of the credibility of reportage the global news agency is reputed for over the last 171 years.
Zagazola Makama, is a Counter Insurgency Expert and Security Analyst in the Lake Chad region.
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