The Independent Human Rights and Crime Monitoring Group has frowned at the report by some bodies that the Nigerian Army killed members of the pro-Biafra group during the Operation Python Dance 11 in the south-eastern part of the country.
According to the group, the report by Intersociety about massacre arising from the exercise was totally false and aimed at rallying IPOB terrorists to regroup ahead of the 2019 General Elections.
International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law, Intersociety, had on Tuesday, released the names of 150 Biafra agitators allegedly killed or injured by the Nigerian Army.
However, HRMG in an assessment of the exercise presented by Barrister Zineke Werigbelegha, Executive Director, on Tuesday, said the claim by the group was totally false and misleading.
He called on the general public to discard the report in entirety.
The report below.
The assessment was restricted to the South-East geo-political zone of the country, where separatists of the defunct Biafra republic are active, covering the period between 2016 and 2017 when the Nigerian Army conducted Operation Python Dance and Operation Python Dance II. While both operations were carried out the in the South-East, the extension of the assessment to limited areas of the South-South was borne out of geo-graphical congruity of the two geo-political zones and the high mobility across both areas.
Subsequent reports confirmed that Operation Python Dance II is the most successful military operation in the South-East to date. Claim by a group affiliate to Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) terrorist group, Intersociety about massacre arising from the exercise is totally false and aimed at rallying IPOB terrorists to regroup ahead of the 2019 General Elections.
The assessment involved interview with residents of the targeted geo-political zone that were randomly selected to factor in sex, age, geographical spread, education, income level and affiliation to socio-cultural organizations. Researchers also spoke with survivors and victims of separatist harassment, military commanders, activists, and former members of separatist movements that have renounced their association with such group. Publicly available documents, news publications, press releases and statements, video and pictorial evidences, social media threads and public archives were content analysed.
Given the misrepresentations that trailed Operation Python Dance I, the Independent Human Rights and Crime Monitoring Group fully monitored Operation Python Dance II.
The Nigerian Army conducted Operation Python Dance in September 2016 as a training drill for troops to sharpen their readiness for deployment where the need arises. This exercise was held at a time the entire South-East was reeling from a wave of crimes like kidnap for ransom, banditry, extortion syndicates, and illicit drugs related crimes that were proving to be beyond the civil police.
Separatist movements that were uncomfortable with what the Operation Python Dance can expose about their activities mounted a campaign to discredit the exercise with a strategy aimed at turning the populace against the Army. IT was later discovered that separatist groups, like the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Biafra Independent Movement (BIM), Biafra Zionist Movement and their other variants were behind these crimes that they use to finance their secessionist bid.
There was heavy build-up of illegal firearms and ammunitions in the entire area while IPOB members had obtained military trainings facilitated by deserters from the military. These trained militia formed themselves into brigades that regularly issue threats targeted at the political and military leadership in the country.
IPOB has instituted a parallel government that extort the people in the name of taxes and it regularly sabotage the ability of law abiding citizens to earn their living by deliberately shutting down economic activities with sit-at home orders. Those who resisted are harassed, tortured or even killed.
The situation became hostile to a point where Nigerians originally from the South-East became apprehensive of travelling to their ancestral homes because they fear for their safety. Persons of other ethnic extraction had become endangered as some were murdered and buried in shallow graves – the explanation ranged from them being victims of kidnap for ransom went awry or the casualty of targeted ethnic cleansing conducted by IPOB.
The successful conduct of Operation Python Dance restored peace and sense of security to the states in the South-East with indigenes of these states being able to enjoy the Yuletide Season at their towns and villages for the first time in a long time. The medical outreach that was bundled with the operation was a success as it allowed many low income residents of the areas to access care. These led the people to appeal for the Army to repeat the exercise in the following year.
The Nigerian Army heeded the call by the populace with Operation Python Dance II, which incidentally came at a time when IPOB had become belligerent in its call for the break-up of Nigeria as its militants drew up maps that propose to annex other ethnic groups as vassals in the defunct Biafra.
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