The
Nigerian Army has disowned one ‘Sergeant’ David Bako, who claimed in a viral
message on social media over the weekend that the abduction of 110 girls from
Government Girls Secondary School, Dapchi, Yobe state, on February 19 was
staged by officials of President Muhammadu Buhari administration.
Sergeant Bako had confessed to being part of a 16-man team
who rehearsed and hatched the abduction of the schoolgirls for a lump sum of
N80 million. He claimed some top loyalists of President Buhari were part of the
scheme.
However, in a statement on Sunday, Brigadier General Texas
Chukwu, Army’s Director of Army Public Relations, said there was no officer
with the name David Bako either as a serving or dismissed in the list of
personnel of the military.
He,
therefore, urged Nigerians to disregard the confession of Mr. Bako who also
claimed he had traveled out of Nigeria to avoid prosecution on the account of
his revelation.
The statement reads: “The attention of the Nigerian Army has
been drawn to a news report making round on Facebook and other social media to
smear and drag the Nigerian Army into politics of calumny by mischief makers,
that one deserted Sergeant David Bako leaks how Dapchi Girls abduction was
planned in the villa and executed with N80 million.
“The information was said to be provided by Sergeant David Bako
who claimed to be deserted soldier and one of the abductors of the Dapchi
School Girls.
“The Nigerian Army, therefore, put the record straight that it
has crosscheck it records and cannot find anyone call Sergeant David Bako who
neither serves in the Army, deserted or dismissed. The Nigerian Army,
therefore, disassociate itself with such fictitious report and request the
public to disregard the confession made by the so call Sergeant David Bako who
has not been in the Army at all.
“It is imperative to know that these baseless and inane
allegations are not new in the cyberspace, knowing the fact that we are in the
age of information warfare. Open Source Intelligence reveals that the website
Dailyglobewatch.eu with country code top-level domain (ccTLD) .eu used in
publishing stories is obviously fake and therefore not correct.
“Based on our findings the website was registered on the 14 of
April 2017 and the last update was on the same date and will expire on the 14th
April 2018, we are very familiar with reports of this nature and will advise
the general public to disregard such claim and desist from sharing such
information on the New Media as this is against the Nigerian Cybercrime Act
2015.
“However, it is really worrisome to the level at which some
people could condescend so low to fabricate facetious allegation against the
Nigerian Army and the military at large for cheap political gains or simply an
act of pure wickedness, thus the public should disregard such facetious
allegation.
“The Nigerian Army wishes to reiterate its commitment to remain
apolitical and non-partisan in the discharge of its constitutional roles. We
would also like to reaffirm our unconditional support and obedience to civil
authority as well as reassuring Nigerians that these Fifth columnists will not
succeed in their mischief as they will be fished out and dealt with
accordingly.”
Similarly, the minister of information, Mr. Lai Mohammad had
dismissed the confession of the alleged deserter, claiming no such name exists
in the Army database.
He said: “I can tell you categorically that this David Bako is
fake. There is no such soldier in the Nigerian Army. There was no conspiracy
anywhere. The intention of those behind the disinformation and fake news is to
cause disaffection between Christians and Muslims, and between Southerners and
Northerners.”
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