The Nigerian Army has accused Sahara Reporters, an online news platform, of mischief and systematic smear campaign aimed at inciting troops, heating up the polity and destabilising the country.
The Director, Army Public Relations, Brig.-General Onyema Nwachukwu, made the allegation in an issued statement yesterday in Abuja.
Nwachukwu said the medium was planning to destabilise the nation through “spurious, baseless and false alarm on corruption, nepotism, ethnic and religious bigotry within the Nigerian Army”.
According to him, a report by the online medium was in total dissonance and aberrance with the virtues and symbol of national unity, which the army and the Armed Forces of Nigeria represent.
He said the report contained some unimaginable slurs targeted at denigrating and demonising the procedure for the selection of competent troops for Peace Support Operations, (PSO).
The Army spokesman noted that those operations had over the years earned the Nigerian Army well-deserved encomiums and enviable status in the comity of nations as a professional, hard-fighting, and disciplined institution.
Nwachukwu added that the Sahara Reporters story was built on crass ignorance and lies, as part of the medium’s penchant of falsehood and attempts to denigrate the Army, and urged Nigerians to interrogate the ulterior motives for which the online medium was so easily sucked in by the antics of ‘conflict merchants and agents provocateurs.
He said the medium was uncomfortable with the steadfastness, patriotism, unwavering commitment, sacrifice, ruggedness, and resoluteness of the Nigerian Army in stamping out terrorism, banditry and other violent crimes in Nigeria and across West Africa.
He assured that the Army would not be distracted by the “deliberate falsehood and noxious narratives”, adding that it will not allow irresponsible media organisations denigrate selfless officers and soldiers, who continued to pay the price of defending the nation and global peace.
