Nigerian security forces, war crimes and crimes against humanity

Finally, the International Criminal Court (ICC) acknowledged that the Nigerian security forces had committed a series of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The court recently acknowledged the receipt of “a total of 169 communications” from Nigerians and their assessment show that the security forces in Nigeria have committed war crimes varying from murder, torture, and intentionally attacking the civilian population. “Specifically, the office found a reasonable basis to believe that the NSF committed the war crimes of murder pursuant to article 8(2)(c)(i); torture , cruel treatment pursuant to article 8(2)(c)(ii); and intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population,” the prosecutor of the global court said.

We at Businessday have constantly called out the Nigerian government over a series of extrajudicial killings and crimes against humanity committed by the security agencies in the country since 2015. It should shock normal Nigerians that the agencies established by the state and paid with their money will be turned against them, abusing their rights and killing their fellow citizens with reckless abandon and nothing is being down about it.

Examples abound. On December 12, 2015, the military took the law into its hands and massacred over 347 members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) who allegedly blocked the convoy of the Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai. Although the military has used several lies to justify the killings, a panel set up by the Kaduna state government to investigate the killings indicted the Nigerian army for the Zaria massacre. Since then, nothing has been done to bring the killers to book. Rather, the leader of the group together with his wife and some followers has been illegally detained since then and the state has responded with lethal force against other members of the sect who have dared to protest their continued incarceration.

Also, early in 2017, Amnesty International, 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 over 177 pro-Biafran agitators and protestors same year. This is besides the hundreds of others killed in the Operation Python Dance and other incidences where the security forces opened fire on defenceless civilians.

To show the real extent of the abuse of Nigerian’s human rights, some months ago, the US state department, indicted Nigerian security forces over human rights abuses in its annual report on human rights in Nigeria titled: “Nigeria 2017 Human Rights Report.” 

The report affirmed that human rights generally remained appalling in Nigeria. it listed these infractions to include: extrajudicial and arbitrary killings; disappearances and arbitrary detentions; torture, particularly in detention facilities, including sexual exploitation and abuse; use of children by some security elements, looting, and destruction of property; civilian detentions in military facilities, often based on flimsy evidence; denial of fair public trial; executive influence on the judiciary; infringement on citizens’ privacy rights; restrictions on freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and movement; official corruption; lack of accountability in cases involving violence against women and children, including female genital mutilation/cutting and sexual exploitation of children; trafficking in persons; early and forced marriages; criminalization of status and same-sex sexual conduct based on sexual orientation and gender identity; and forced and bonded labor.”

For a long time, the Nigerian security apparatuses, aided, no doubt, by its corrupt political leadership, have acquired notoriety for treating citizens as enemies or a conquered people with no rights. Despite the return to democratic rule, that culture is yet to change. Also, the various attempts made by citizens and human rights groups to hold the security forces to account has failed to curtail their excesses.

We hope that the opening of the cases against Nigerian security forces will serve a powerful warning to the leadership of these agencies that they will be held to account by the ICC no matter how long it takes and that the wanton abuse of the rights of Nigerians will no longer be tolerated.