Amnesty International and Nigerian army

For the umpteenth time, the Nigerian army is publicly protesting the activities of Amnesty International in Nigeria and is calling for the closure of its Nigerian office. The army spokesman, Sani Usman, said in a statement on Monday that Amnesty International wanted to distabilise the nation through the fabrication of ‘fictitious’ allegations of human rights abuses against the Nigerian security forces.

“They have tried over the years using Boko Haram terrorists’ conflicts, Islamic Movement in Nigeria, some activists and now herders-farmers conflicts…[It] is at the verge of releasing yet another concocted report against the military, ostensibly against the Nigerian Army. Consequently, Nigerians should be wary of Amnesty International (Nigeria) because its goals are to destabilise Nigeria and to dismember it. The Nigerian Army has no option than to call for the closure of Amnesty International offices in Nigeria, if such recklessness continues,” Usman said in his press release.

The army is again reacting to the release of AI’s latest report on Nigeria titled: “Harvest of Death: Three Years of Bloody Clashes Between Farmers and Herders.” The global watchdog said in the report that the Nigerian government’s failure to investigate communal clashes and bring perpetrators to justice has fuelled a bloody escalation in the conflict between farmers and herders across the country. The conflict has resulted in at least 3,641 deaths in the past three years and the displacement of thousands more, the report stated. It said 57 percent of the 3, 641 recorded deaths occurred in 2018.

This is coming three days after the army accused UNICEF of aiding terrorism in the NorthEast and ordering the closure of its Nigerian office. The army alleged that UNICEF had shifted from “its duty of catering to the wellbeing of children and the vulnerable through humanitarian activities and now engages in training selected persons for clandestine activities.”

This is not the first time the Nigerian army and Amnesty International have been engaged in a tussle over human rights abuses. Early last year, the global human rights watchdog, released its report on Nigeria in which it accused the Nigerian Army of being directly responsible for the death of 240 people, including infants, in a dreaded military detention centre in Borno in 2016 and the extra-judicial killing of 177 pro-Biafran agitators and protestors same year. The watch-dog also partly blamed the army for holding hostage most IDPs in camps under inhuman conditions, which led to over 1200 deaths just in one camp alone. AI, writing on the condition of the detention facility said: “At the military detention facility at Giwa barracks, Maiduguri, cells were overcrowded. Diseases, dehydration and starvation was rife. At least, 240 detainees died during the year. Bodies were secretly buried in Maiduguri’s cemetery by the Borno State Environmental Protection Agency staff. Among the dead were, at least, 29 children and babies, aged between newborn and five years.”

After the report was published, the Nigerian army came out to strongly deny the report describing it as “rather contrived lies orchestrated to blackmail and ridicule the Nigerian Armed Forces which they have successfully tried to do in the past”. As it has done with local journalists and human rights activities who criticise it for human rights violation, the army, through its spokesman, accused AI of encouraging “activities of non-state actors who take up arms against the state, killing, maiming and destroying public property.”

But history is not on the side of the Nigerian Army. Countless bodies, international and local NGOs, journalists, and even the Panel of Inquiry instituted by the Kaduna state government to investigate the Army –Shiite clash in Zaria in December 2015 have all indicted the Nigerian Army for extrajudicial killings. It is also a fact that the people in the IDP camps are dying of starvation and want and are being detained there against their will by the Nigerian Army probably on the orders of the government. The allegations of soldiers killing pro-Biafran protesters were also backed by countless eyewitnesses, documentary and video evidences.

The balance of evidence weighs heavily against the Nigerian Army. True, Amnesty International has been relentless in its exposure of human rights abuses allegedly perpetrated by Nigerian soldiers in the country’s war against Boko Haram and the military’s ruthlessness in quelling protests in other parts of Nigeria. This is because of the Watchdog’s commitment to defending human rights and not because of any supposed bias or collaboration with violent non-state actors. While many Nigerians are willing to excuse extra-judicial killings and gross violations of human rights on the excuse that the army is defending the country, AI doesn’t buy that argument. It is its firm belief that human rights should be respected at all times regardless of situations and no life should be taken or if it should, not without the benefit of open and fair trial.

The Nigerian Army will do well to shed its famed notoriety of treating citizens as enemies or a conquered people. It must learn to operate on the basis of respect for the full rights of all individuals in the country. More importantly, we believe ultimately that the government directly sanctions or at worse condone these killings and abuse of human rights. We operate a democracy in Nigeria and the government must ensure that all security agencies treat citizens with the utmost respect and safeguard their rights at all times.