By Karen Goulding

Nigeria is indeed a great country because, despite the array of conspiracies geared towards its disintegration, the country has been able to pull through even in the face of its adversaries. I belong to the school of thought that posits that there are some secret plans by some external collaborators to see that Nigeria is destabilized and eventually disintegrates.

I won’t mince words in this regards. The proponents of this dishonourable plot are covered under various unsuspecting nomenclatures. A good example is Amnesty International, the world-acclaimed human rights group that claims it has more than 7 million members and supporters around the world.

In my years of conducting researches, I have never come across an organization as sleazy as Amnesty International. Their activities are structured in such a way that it is for sale to the highest bidder. And one of their bargaining tools is blackmail. And guess what, it has worked for them in other climes where they have operations but not in Nigeria.

This fact reinforces my initial statement about Nigeria surviving several conspiracies to remain strong and united. And this was possible because Nigerians saw through their gimmick early enough else I bet you it would have been a catastrophic story for Nigeria if the likes of Amnesty International had their way.

Make no mistakes, Amnesty International are significant players in the game of blackmail and mischief, this modus operandi has paid off handsomely because they have over time built a vast network in both the international and local media through which they dispense their yearly reports which are often outright insinuations, illogical conclusions, and an amalgamation of half-truths.

I recall a time I attended a conference in London on the role of Civil Society Organizations in breeding distrust and disunity in countries around the African region, and the name Amnesty International led the pack of those organizations whose activities are suspect and must be scrutinized by countries where they are in operation.

One of the guest speakers at the conference stated that “It is obvious that across the globe where Amnesty International has state offices, it has been observed that its methodology in information gathering was defective.” And the participants agreed with him in totality. He further added that “Amnesty International is primarily motivated not by human rights but by publicity, money, getting more members and internal turf battles.”

And this brings me to the activities of Amnesty International in Nigeria with regards to the fight against Boko Haram insurgents and other militant groups in the country. It was such a sickening situation the military authorities had with Amnesty International who somewhat became the mouthpiece of a group of people that kill and destroy without mercy. I recall that Amnesty International on several occasions accused the Nigerian military of human rights violations by killing Boko Haram fighters in the battlefield.

But they kept mute on the millions of women and children that had been killed and displaced by this same terrorist group. I recall that at some point the military authorities accused Amnesty International of causing a distraction in the war against terrorism in Nigeria by its unfounded allegations of human rights violations and challenged it to come up with tangible pieces of evidence or desist from heating the polity unnecessarily. But there was none.

They didn’t stop at that, and they resorted to engaging local NGO’s by pushing a narrative that would attract condemnation to the military. But again it didn’t fly because some of these NGO’s saw through their game plan and refused to play ball. In my opinion, Nigerians got fed up with the nefarious activities of Amnesty International that at a point, there were agitations for the expulsion of Amnesty International from Nigeria. And how they managed to survive the mass protests remains a mystery till date.

Some school of thought argued that their strong links in the media made that possible because in truth, Amnesty International had infiltrated the bulk of the media organizations in Nigeria who hitherto gave their activities prominence without verifying the substance of their allegations against the Nigerian military and by extension the Nigerian Authorities.

And now, it is interesting to see how Amnesty International has resurfaced with a strong support for the violent activities of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) regardless of the fact that this group has taken the laws into their hands by disrupting public peace, constituting themselves into a parallel government and killing innocent civilians as well as security agents.

I am of the firm conviction that this time around, Amnesty International is either eyeing the petrodollars from Iran or it has been induced monetarily by the Islamic Republic of Iran to lend its voice to the plight of its faithful’s in Nigeria. It is either of both cases because it defeats human comprehension on why Amnesty International would attempt to take sides with a violent organization such as the IMN.

They cannot feign ignorance to the fact that the recent resurgence of the violent tendencies of IMN in Nigeria that has seen to the death of scores of people including a high ranking police officer who was shot in the head while trying to calm the IMN protesters was not sponsored.

They cannot also feign ignorance to the fact that the IMN enjoys tremendous support from Iran and other terrorist organizations around the world. These organizations, in their wisdom, have provided monetary and logistic support to the IMN to destabilize the country and guess what? It appears Amnesty International has been drafted into the plot, else how could one explain its tactic support for the violent actions of the IMN of indeed it is an organization dedicated to the ideals of human rights.

As it has been stated in many forums, Amnesty International is primarily motivated by monetary gains before any other thing because its report lacked any actual evidence, with its presentation consisting instead of fabricated images, sounds, maps, and diagrams. Amnesty International has consistently used the techniques of classical deception to target and manipulates audiences emotionally.

At this point, I stand to say in unequivocal terms that what Amnesty International is engaged in is not human rights advocacy, but rather politically-motivated war propaganda simply hiding behind such advocacy as in the case of its activities in Nigeria and other climes where it operates. They are indeed terrors new bride.

Goulding wrote this piece from London, United Kingdom.