The Federal Government has reaffirmed its commitment to ending impunity and facilitating recourse to justice for victims, as well as ensuring punishment for perpetrators.
Abubakar Malami, Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, said this on Monday, in a statement by Dr Umar Gwandu, Special Assistant on Media and Public Relations Office, in the Ministry of justice.
Malami was speaking at the opening of the five-day 18th Session of the assembly of State Parties to the Rome Statute, at the International Criminal Court (ICC), at the Hague, Netherlands.
He said Nigeria was also committed to criminalisation of starvation as a weapon of war under the Rome Statute of the ICC.
He, however, decried the numerous challenges the International Criminal Court (ICC), had been facing, He said, “The challenges include increasing attacks against it and its officials, possibilities of further withdrawals from the Rome Statute, weakening of the Rome Statute system and its support across the globe.”
Other challenges, he said, included reduction in multilateral engagement amidst rising tides of hostility, discrimination, and repression around the world.
Malami said Nigeria desired to see ICC overcome all its present challenges and become a global, independent and impartial Court, with capability to rid the world of impunity, the type that characterised World War I and II.
He put forward Nigeria’s call on all civilised nations of the world to rise up to this critical challenge, “if we must safeguard the present and future generations from extermination, informing the gathering that the Boko Haram elements had been considerably decimated through the efforts of the Nigerian Security Forces and the support of proximate neighbours and other friendly states.
