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Boko Haram: Coalition lauds army for lifting suspension on UNICEF

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A civil society group, Coalition Against Terrorism (CATE), has praised the Nigerian Army’s prompt reversal of its earlier suspension of the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) from the northeast of the country.

Speaking at a press conference on Saturday, Gabriel Onoja, National President of the group urged international bodies to investigate the activities of some compromised UNICEF staffs, jeopardizing the remarkable progress of the Nigerian troops.

Onoja said “with the exposure that the Nigerian Army has made about how its fighters come about the intel they use to attack military posts, Boko Haram would attempt to quickly use the information that sabotage have placed at its disposal before their unholy alliance was exposed.

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“This could lead to the escalation of attacks or even a change in tactics to again begin attacking civilians so that the coalition against the Army can use the renewed attacks as talking points to counter-accuse the Army as being inefficient”.

UNICEF is one of the many international and indigenous organizations that are present in the North East, where the understanding is that each and every one of these organisations are involved in providing relief and succour to the persons affected by the years of Boko Haram’s insurgency and terrorism. This is a legitimate undertaken to the extent that actors stick to the roles for which they are accredited to maintain presence in that axis.

The reason cited by the Nigerian Army for suspending UNICEF included the accusation that the organization was engaged in unwholesome activities that aided Boko Haram terrorists.

Onoja further stated “you may wish to recall that there was an incident not too long ago when staffers of UNICEF colluded with other foreign agencies under Protection From Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) Nigeria programme to concoct allegations of s3xual abuses against troops.

“The target at that time was to discredit and destabilize the military working in conjunction with groups like Amnesty International. Leaked emails from that plot showed that the international organizations coordinated by UNICEF actively encouraged their members to shop for evidence, including sourcing witnesses to lie that they have been abused. It is on record at that time that some of the other humanitarian groups took the matter up and demanded that such operation ceases immediately.

“In their usual tradition, they easily shook off censure and the public outrage that followed the leakage of their plot by claiming that those that protested against them were instigated by the military. Members of the coalition of these international organizations went on the offensive against the Nigerian state but not much was heard of the report they had planned to rattle the Nigerian state with. The handling of the situation then is one the Nigerian Army can adapt for managing the recent discovery of relief workers being in bed with terrorists”.

He expressed fear that this was model that contributed significantly to the instability that engulfed Syria, where the White Elements, while posing as humanitarian workers, were actually conduits for certain foreign interests to give support to al-Nusra terrorists, which in reality is an affiliate of the Islamic State (ISIS).

“There have been allegations that they even helped stage false flag attacks to indict the Syrian state, which can only leave us hoping that Boko Haram has not created a new wing of humanitarian workers that have infiltrated UNICEF”, he added.

“Even as we commend the Nigerian Army for the bold step in reversing the suspension of UNICEF, we condemn those involved in supporting Boko Haram against Nigeria in the strongest terms possible. It is a crime that is intolerable in any country known to us and it certainly has no place here in Nigeria.

“We demand that the headquarters of UNICEF should not attempt to hide behind one finger in this instance but should investigate how its Nigeria Country Office got to this level. The objective should be to identify its staffers involved in collaborating with terrorists and how high up the hierarchy the involvement is. It has the burden to expose the staff that tarnished its image in this fashion and give them up to authorities to face the consequences of their unacceptable actions”, Onoja noted.

The post Boko Haram: Coalition lauds army for lifting suspension on UNICEF appeared first on Tribune Online.

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