Buhari approved ‘operation positive ID’, says Buratai – TheNigerialawyer

Tukur Buratai, chief of army staff, says President Muhammadu
Buhari approved ‘operation positive identification’ scheduled to
commence on Friday.

Buratai said this on Thursday when he appeared before the house
of representatives committee investigating the operation.

The planned operation scheduled to commence on November 1
through December 23, 2019, would require citizens to move about
with a means of identification.

Owing to the outrage over the operation, the house of
representatives asked the military to put it on hold and directed
its committee on army to investigate it.

At the committee’s meeting in Abuja, Buratai, who was
represented by Usman Muhammed, chief of civil-military affairs at
the Nigerian army, said the president and minister of defence are
in support of the operation.

He said the exercise, first launched in the north-east in
September, is being extended nationwide to intercept Boko Haram
insurgents who had relocated from their enclaves to other parts of
the country.

He, however, denied claims that the operation would involve
deployment of troops into communities across the country, adding
that it is a “special operation fused into ongoing operations”.

He said it is an intelligence-based operation to intercept
insurgents and other “criminal elements” relocating from the
north-east to other parts of the country.

Abdulrazak Namdaz, the committee chairman, expressed
reservations over the operation which he said is not within the
scope of the army but other security agencies like the police and
immigration.

He added: “It cannot take effect from tomorrow (Friday). We have
actually told them that this thing requires sensitisation, will
require a lot of media work, press conferences and Nigerians need
to be fully informed; we will talk to relevant authorities to see
that this thing is shifted in terms of identification.”

FALANA: ARMY TAKING OVER POLICE DUTIES

In a suit filed before a federal high court in Lagos in which
Abubakar Malawi, minister of justice, was joined as a co-defendant,
Femi Falana, senior advocate of Nigeria, sought an order stopping
the army from proceeding with the operation.

He argued the operation is “unconstitutional, illegal, null and
void” and asked the court to declare that the army is not empowered
to take over police duties.

He said while the constitution empowers the president to deploy
the armed forces for the suppression of insurrection and acting in
aid of civil authorities, “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”.