The murder in Adamawa by the Air Force

Last week Tuesday, Amnesty International, the global human rights watch-dog released a report that indicted the Nigerian Air Force of firing rockets on five villages in Adamawa state December 4, 2017, at the same time Fulani herdsmen invaded the communities in reprisal attacks for earlier killings.
A team from the global watchdog visited the affected villages of Lawaru, Dong, Kodomti, Shafaron and Nzuruwei soon after and residents there described being “attacked by a fighter jet and a military helicopter as they attempted to flee”. The report alleged that while 86 (eighty-six) people were killed in the attacks, the air force was directly responsible for at least 35 of those deaths and of the destruction of over 3, 000 homes.
Amnesty International contacted said it contact the air force and initially, the air force spokesman Olatolunbo Adesanya denied the bombing incidents entirely saying the force only opened fire to dissuade looters and vandals and was not aware of any human casualty. However, two weeks later, Adesanya substantially revised his account saying that “the herdsmen had opened fire on the aircraft.” He also let slip that the air force recorded video footage of the operations which involved an Alpha Jet and an EC 135 helicopter. Since then, all entreaties to the air force to release the video of the attacks have proved abortive. This incident must not be swept under the carpet. It must be thoroughly investigated and culprits punished.
It is sad that a critical national security apparatus is being accused by a global body of complicity in the killing of hapless Nigerians that are already under attack. We hate to note that this is not an isolated case. Security agencies have been fingered as collaborators or at best criminal onlookers who refuse to intervene to stop attacks by herdsmen on communities in Adamawa, Benue, Taraba, Ondo, Kaduna and other parts of the country.
Shockingly, the government’s response has been slow and largely ineffective. The killings have continued in across the country in earnest. Last week, the governor of Taraba, Darius Ishaku and lawmakers from the state in the House of Representatives raised an alarm over planned attacks on the state by suspected herdsmen. This was a state where the governor and other prominent indigenes of the state accused security forces of using helicopters to drop arms and ammunition for herdsmen with which the state will be attacked.
Just seven hours after the governor raised the alarm, unknown Fulani gunmen attacked and killed four persons in Ngutsen village in Gasol local government of the state. This is even as the killings in Benue states and in Tiv villages in Nassarawa state has continued unabated.
Much more unfortunate is the response of the government to the killings. President Buhari’s official response thus far to the killings was to advice the people being killed to “in the name of God accommodate your countrymen” (the herdsmen). Similarly, the Defence Minister, Mansur Dan-Ali, after a security council meeting, amplified the president’s statement by blaming the killings on the blocking of the grazing routes reserved for the herdsmen before independence and on the recently passed anti-open grazing bills passed in three states of the federation. As if that was not enough, the Inspector General of Police, last week Friday, also blamed the killings on the anti-open grazing bill and insinuated that the only way to stop the killings is to repeal the bills.
This is unfortunate to say the least. The result, as we have predicted, is the resort to self-help, reprisal attacks and the escalation of hate speech along ethnic and religious lines all over the country. An example is the gruesome and reprehensible murder, last week, of seven innocent Fulani men in Gboko Benue state.
The government must wake up to its responsibility to protect lives and property of all Nigerians like it promised to do. That is the basic duty of every government and if it fails to do that, it has lost the right to remain in power.