The Nigerian Army has dismissed a viral video showing the gruesome killing of two purported soldiers and a mobile policeman by the Islamic State West African Province terrorists.
In the 1 minute 21 seconds video, the three men said they were abducted by a certain ‘army’ before they were subsequently shot to death.
However, in a statement by the Acting Director, Army Public Relations, Col. Sagir Musa, the army said the video was stage-managed.
The statement read: “The attention of the Nigerian Army has been drawn to a viral, unsubstantiated and apparently fabricated video clip circulating on the social media portraying the stage managed/so called capture and killing of some Nigerian soldiers by Boko Haram terrorists on the 10th of December 2019.
”The Nigerian Army wishes to emphatically state that there was no incident that involved the “capture and killing of tens and tens of Nigerian soldiers on the 10th of December 2019″ as mischievously and wickedly portrayed in the video.
”Similarly, preliminary observation of the video clip (even by the amateur) will reveal that the video was doctored and that the entire events captured in the footage was not an occurrence that took place at any point in time within the shores of Nigeria.
”To this end the Nigerian Army is hereby calling on the members of the general public and indeed personnel of the Nigerian Army especially those in the North East theatre of operation to disregard the sinister, very inciting and divisive video concocted and peddled by the outlawed IPOB members whose main objective is the disunity and fragmentation of Nigeria as clearly shown or espoused in the video.
”Accordingly, the call by one Simon Ekpa, (the principal actor in the clip), calling on soldiers of South East extraction presently serving in the North East to desert the Army and return to Biafra as well as calling on South Easterners not to join the Nigerian Army is an obvious indication of the essence and objective of the masterminds of this fake video which should be dicountenanced by the public.”