The Nigerian Army has said no soldiers were killed in a a video that has been trending, describing the purported viral video in which some men held hostage in an open field were executed as false.
The Army said in a statement on Thursday signed by the acting Director of Army Public Relations, Colonel Sagir Musa, that the video was doctored.
He said:“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.”
Although, preliminary observation of the clip, according to Musa, revealed that it was doctored and that the entire event captured in the footage was not an occurrence that took place at any point in time within the shores of the country.
“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,” he added.
The army spokesman who insisted that the video was inciting and divisive, attributed its origin to the outlawed indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) group.
He condemned the call by one Simon Ekpa who he purported to be the principal actor in the clip that soldiers of the South East extraction presently serving in the North East should desert the army and return to Biafra.
According to him, the call on the people of the South East not to join the Nigerian Army is an obvious indication of the essence and objective of the masterminds of the video which should be discountenanced by the public.
Musa insisted that army remains committed to sustaining the war against terrorism and would not be deterred by any propagandist activity.