By Raphael Ekpang
As the Special Independent Investigative Panel on Human Rights Violations in Counter-Insurgency Operations in North East Nigeria (SIIP North East) continues with it facts finding mission in Borno state, the Commander of Joint Investigation Centre (JIC) of Operation Hadin Kai in Giwa Barracks, Maiduguri, Borno state, LT. Colonel A.U. Ahmed has said that contrary to Reuters’ report, pregnant women rescued by the military from the frontline were supported to deliver their babies safely.
Ahmed noted that of the 2,048 detainees at the centre, 35 are women; among them are those who are pregnant at the time they were rescued from the battlefield, and some of them were also rescued with their little children.
Lt. Colonel Ahmed disclosed this through his second in command, Captain Olugbenga Adeniyi while testifying before the panel which visited the centre, adding that Reuters’ report seeking to indict the military of human rights infractions is unfounded. “We won’t have children with their mothers in the facility if pregnancies were terminated as purportedly reported by the media house.”
Captain Adeniyi told the 7-Member panel chaired by Justice Abdu Aboki (rtd), that it is an ironic for Reuters’ to alleged of abortions of 10,000 pregnancies, infanticide, and other forms of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) against the military which has successfully conducted several antenatal and postnatal services, citing an example of an infant delivered in the facility only three days ago as at the time of this report. “How can we have all these children here if we terminate pregnancies?”
In the same vein, the Head of Records at the JIC, Lt Sadiq Ahmed Ogoshi told the panel that the centre has not recorded any death or abortion of pregnancies.
On how the centre manages cases of pregnancy involving women and girls, Ogoshi stated that they have medical personnel including nurses and community health workers who take care of such cases.
According to him, when such women and girls brought into the facility are due for delivery, they are conveyed by the Clinic’s ambulance to the 7 Division Hospitals at Maimalari military cantonment where they are given the required medical attention.
Similarly, a nurse at the JIC medical facility, an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP), Hyplapamduwa Wakawa said that she ensures that any drugs administered to patients are recorded in line with standard medical practices.
She also informed the panel that she is not aware that certain drugs like oxytocin were used between 2017 and 2019 to terminate the pregnancies of 30 girls (less than 18 years) so as to stop them from giving birth to children fathered by the Boko Haram insurgents.
Meanwhile, a Member of the investigative panel, Dr. Maisaratu Bakari (Consultant in Obstetrics and Gynecology, Modibbo Adam University Teaching Hospital, Yola Adamawa state) has observed the need to ensure that proper and timely immunization programme are carried out in the detention facility so that babies and children who are in the facility are afforded the opportunity to get immunized against various deceases.
In another development, a Specialist Registrar attached to Maimalari Military hospital at the headquarters of Operation Hadin Kai, 7 Division, Maiduguri, Borno state, Dr. Chika Joachim Maduka told the panel that the hospital only manages miscarriages and not abortion of pregnancies as reported by Reuters.
The testimony of the doctor followed his examination by the Secretary of the panel, Mr. Hilary Ogbonna when he responded to the allegation of abortion of 10,000 pregnancies of women and girls in the course of counter insurgency operations in the North East, as alleged in the Reuters’ report.
The witness who is also an obstetrics gynaecologist stated that although the hospital carries out medical termination of pregnancies when the need arises, it abides by the standard practice.
Besides, he said in his three-year practice in the hospital he never carried out any abortion of pregnancies of women and girls as alleged in Reuters’ report.
Also in his testimony before the panel, the Chief Nursing Superintendent and Head of Nursing Services at the hospital, Lt. Colonel D. Tumaka said that the hospital does not have any record of abortion.
According to the Chief Nurse, every medication administered to patients is prescribed by Doctors, and they are documented in nurses’ drug charts as a routine practice.
He said that most of the patients they treat are wives of military personnel even as he conceded they offer some assistance to women and children rescued by the troops by way of providing them with water and food and ensuring they take their bathe before the appropriate military authorities hand them over the state government.
He also said that they ensure that the medical professional ethics which is also similar to that of the military profession has strictly adhered to in all ramifications at all times. The military is highly law-abiding and no military medical facility will subject itself to illicit medical practice, he added.
The panel also took turns to interrogate Corporal Micheal Babatunde, the mortuary technician, LT. Nuhu Danjuma Koro, the custodian of medical records, and Sgt Nelson Meture, the pharmacy Technician, all serving at the military medical facility.
