The Nigerian army has been charged to court by lawyer and human rights activist, Femi Falana over “operation positive identification” exercise which was scheduled to take off in all states on the country on Friday, November 1.
WITHIN NIGERIA learnt that the Nigerian army has disclosed this in a statement released by the military authority ahead of the exercise in which soldiers will be demanding a valid form of identification from all Nigerians.
According to Nigerian army, ” it would checkmate bandits, kidnappers, armed robbers, ethnic militia, cattle rustlers as well as perpetrators of other crimes across the various regions of Nigeria.”
Meanwhile, the popular lawyer and activist, Femi Falana has approached the Federal High Court in Lagos to declare the exercise “illegal” as it violates people’s right to freedom of movement.
In the lawsuit which has the Nigerian army as its first respondent and the Chief of Army Staff as its second respondent, Falana stated that the Nigeran army is only empowered by the constitution “to disperse its officials for the purposes of suppressing insurrection, which is not the case at the moment.
“There is no insurrection in every part of the country which the Nigeria police cannot contain to warrant the deployment of armed troops all over the country from 1st November, 2019 to December 23rd, 2019.
“Neither the Constitution nor the Armed Forces Act Cap A20 LFN, 2004 has empowered the Nigeria Army to arrest any citizen who is not subject to service law.”
The Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai has however stated that the exercise will continue despite opposition.
