HOW CAN FACTS PREVAIL IF THE MILITARY PROBES ITSELF?

The Punch may imagine that it has delivered a scathing editorial, properly balanced, equally indicting both the Nigerian military command and Amnesty International, AI. The Editorial Board failed in that regard. Moreover, if that was the aim, it was an unnecessary pandering to the military which to date has never been answerable to just about anybody. For the Punch to bend over backwards to sanitize the rightly deserved odium, a result of its excesses in the area of non-observance of Human Rights, is to remove the one single leverage "we the people" still have. The military loves it's image dearly, even if it is a false one. From all indications not a single officer appears worried at the prospect of a sojourn at The Hague as guest of the ICC.

Quoting the former military Head of State, Gen Yakubu Gowon was certainly unhelpful in reining in the forces under the command of Gen Buratai. That comment was both insensitive and not politically correct. One would wonder what the prayer warrior would have to say about the serial massacre of IPOB activists, who unlike Boko Haram, have murdered nobody.

The Editorial had also commented,
"AI should be accurate in its claims, as it has no direct access to military facilities, . " This is besides the point. The tendency of the military to obstruct any investigation of its personnel, premises and facilities is legendary.

On the matter of "accuracy" of the numbers killed/murdred, I do not get it. For anyone to choose to dwell on whether actually 250 or 296 or 347 followers of Zakzaki were killed in order to meet the standard of accuracy is both insensitive and wicked. What exactly does it matter? We are not doing a census here. This is a macabre head count of murder victims for crying out loud.

Again let's look at the report concerning the IPOB. Was the casualty17, 177 or 577. Does it make any difference? The Punch may have forgotten that the initial reports based on eyewitness observations and video recordings came to us from our own compatriots via Facebook and YouTube. The final collation by AI was of no particular interest to any observer who had seen enough gore. Amnesty International confirmed nothing that we did not know already.

Finally, where was the knockout punch by The Punch rejecting this travesty of an investigative panel? John Nnia Nwodo spoke our minds when he reminded all and sundry that NO ONE SITS IN JUDGEMENT IN HIS OWN CASE.

I rest my bag!