Ever since its inauguration, the Mr. Chidi Odinkalu-led Human Right Commission has gone to great lengths to portray itself as a body that seemingly, robustly intervenes in issues of human right abuses in Nigeria. In a country where over 90% of the prison population are persons awaiting trial, many of whom have been in this tenuous state of legal limbo for well over 10 years; where entire communities are forcefully disposed of their ancestral and farm lands with little or no compensation; where public officials and persons of relative means ride rough over the liberties and rights of ordinary folks; avenues for aggressive human rights education, enforcement and implementation are certainly not lacking.
A scrutiny of the various ‘robust’ interventions of the HRC will however reveal a most worrisome partisan trend particularly geared towards attacking the fundamentals of State cohesion in the Nigerian polity.
From the hastily prepared inaccurate and largely subjective ‘Interim Report’ on the Bama (Bornu State) encounter between the Nigerian Army and terrorist elements (an ‘interim report’ that was widely circulated, locally and internationally, lavishly released without any efforts to follow-up with a presentation of a ‘permanent report’ thereafter); to the intervention in the matrimonial issue between a State Governor (Sullivan Chime of Enugu State) and his estranged wife; to the intervention in the media-orchestrated feud between Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, and then Rivers State Police Commissioner, Mr. Mbu; and now the intervention in the unfortunate killing of illegal squatters of privately owned property in Abuja; a very worrisome pattern of selective activism is clearly discernible - a passion to delve into controversies with a potential to smear the Military and security agencies and score cheap goals against perceived political adversaries.
Conveniently escaping the ‘robust’ intervention of the HRC are such matters as the discovery of several corpses found floating on the Ezu River in Anambra State, bodies of acclaimed members of the members of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB); the deployment of Chemical Weapons in attacks against hapless villages in Benue State which resulted in mass deaths; the continuing slaughter of defenseless villagers by terrorists and herdsmen and the continuing depreciation in the lives of thousands of Nigerians who are left to rot in prisons across the lands on mostly trumped up charges or at the discretion of our broken justice system.
At this onset, it must be categorically stated that extrajudicial executions/killings are a most heinous crime and the perpetrators thereof, no matter how highly placed ought to be identified and made to face the full weight of the law.
With its report on the alleged squatters killed in a military raid in the Aso area of Abuja on September 20th 2013 (the Apo-8 killings), the Odinkalu-led HRC has finally come out to the fore, for those who had doubts previously, with a most sinister agenda that will ultimately bring the Nigeria Federation and its core organs, the Presidency and the Military apparatus, to international ridicule and odium: the very same path Kenya now finds itself threading – having its two highest political office holders (the President and Vice President) indicted and being prosecuted before the International Court of Justice on criminal charges for crimes against humanity.
A scrutiny of the findings of the HRC as announced by its Chair (Odinkalu) in this matter will reveal that the report was based on glaring factual and legal inaccuracies which can only lead one with a subjective mind to arrive at the conclusions announced with flourish by the HRC on the ‘Apo-8 killings’. Two irrefutable facts of the matter are:
1. Some soldiers and security personnel stormed a privately owned uncompleted building on and engaged some persons in an altercation which eventually and most unfortunately led to the death of 8 persons and injuries to some others.
2. The owner of the premises in question has severally, unsuccessfully, tried to recover the premises from the squatters.
Issues which any objective inquiry would have sought to clarify in this present matter include the following:
a. Was there any unlawful and unauthorized use of the personnel and equipment of the Nigeria Army and security agencies in the operations which resulted in the deaths and injuries under investigation?
b. Did the Military High Command and the leadership of the Security organizations assent to the operations undertaken, which resulted in the killings and injuries?
c. Was there any effort to identify the particular personnel who either ordered or executed the instant operations under considerations?
d. Are there existing mechanisms within our Military and other security agencies for bringing to justice military and security personnel who go against military rules of engagement with civilian populations in areas where no conflict exists?
e. Were the existing mechanisms within our Military (the Adjutant Generals office) and Security agencies allowed to function in this matter?
f. Was there an exchange of gun-fire between the ‘military/security’ personnel and the victims?
g. Could the owner of the premises in question have surreptitiously procured the intervention of military and security agencies to evict the squatters from the premises?
h. Could the Nigerian Army (military), as an institution, by any stretch of the imagination have benefitted or masterminded the Apo-8 killings?
Answers to the above questions and others that may flow therefrom would ordinarily have been vital to any entity interested in unraveling the truth and attaining justice regarding the unfortunate incidents of the night of September 20th 2013.
Apparently, and as expected going by its penchant to lampoon efforts at tackling terror and portraying our Military in unsavory lights, the truth and justice of the matter was far removed from the scope of the HRC. There was palpable haste, having failed in previous attempts at vilifying the military/security agencies, to ‘finally’ nail the Military over the Apo-8 killings incident.
The decisions of the HRC is apparently based on a belief stated in the jaundiced report that the heroic efforts of our soldiers and security personnel to tackle the canker-worm of terrorism tantamount to a Non-International Armed Conflict (NIAC). This reasoning is presumptive, lacks precedents and not supportable by the realities and experiences of other countries engaged in addressing domestic terrorism. It is the prerogative of the Nigerian President and Commander in Chief to, after due consultations with the Senate of the Federal Republic, declare war or ‘armed conflict’ on any entity, local or international. As of today, no such proclamation of war has been made. What is in effect presently is merely a Declaration of a State of Emergency which accords the military authorities some liberties to effectively curtail terror activities. There is thus, technically and practically, no NIAC, imagined or real and as such findings of the HRC in this regard are untenable, farfetched and merely a rouse to further expose our Military to odium in furtherance of whatsoever personal aspirations.
Following from the misidentification of a NIAC, the description of the unfortunate victims as ‘civilian non-combatants’, is simply ridiculous! Are all Nigerians ‘civilian non-combatants’ by virtue of the fact that we live in Nigeria during a period when our soldiers are engaged in routing out terror elements in our northeastern zone? Would it be appropriate to refer to civilians in areas where the military are engaged in routing out armed robbers as ‘civilian non-combatants’ for the purposes of the Law of Wars?
Taking a cue from global practices, the various military operations undertaken by the United States and its allies in efforts to checkmate terror in the Middle East, particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq, have remained uncategorized- neither being referred to as ‘War’, International Armed Conflicts (IAC’s) or whatsoever, creating sufficient enabling environment to allow the soldiers involved in the relevant operations to do the needful whilst being subjected to relevant domestic disciplinary actions for infractions of domestic and military laws. Daring to declare the heroic actions of the Nigerian Military against terrorist groups as NIAC is a deliberate action to not only set up the leadership of the Military when the action under review occurred, but also the Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces, for possible subsequent actions at the international level.
In arriving at its decision that the Nigerian Army was responsible for the deaths and injuries, the HRC presupposed that the order to send soldiers to storm a private premises in the Federal Capital territory, far removed from the known areas where the military was involved in routing out terror elements, was a decision of the Nigerian Army as an institution. This simply is preposterous and unsupportable by commonsense. No one for instance accused the United States Army for the infractions of international laws which occurred when some renegade elements in the US Army maltreated prisoners under their care at either Guantanamo Bay or Abu Ghraib detention facilities, nor was the United States or the British Army accused of culpability in the various excesses of their soldiers in Fallujah or Basra, Iraq, respectively, or Afghanistan. Why the haste to find the Nigeria Army guilty of the actions of a few renegade soldiers whose actions was clearly not in tandem with the ethos of our military?
Could the killings have been ordered by the Army High Command? Was the attack on the privately owned premises a part of the strategies of the Nigeria Army in prosecuting the orders of its Commander-in-Chief to root out terrorism in Nigeria’s North East region? If the answers to these two questions are in the negative, how then could the Mr. Odinkalu-led HRC have reached its conclusions of guilt against the Nigeria Army? Unless of course there are other issues this body is out to achieve. I have had cause in the past to highlight the bias and unprofessionalism in the HRC under its present leadership (see: http://ezeluchie.blogspot.com/2013/11/national-confused-human-rights.html ), but by a wide margin, the present assault evident in the Report on the Apo-8 killings is the greatest affront to national interest and any known principles of justice.
The spontaneous total rejection and announcement of a desire to appeal the HRC decisions by the Head of the Nigerian Army Legal team/unit is most welcome. Quite unlike the pedestrian self-preservatory response of the present Attorney General of the Federation, Mr. Adoke Mohammed, who was likewise ‘indicted’ in the said HRC Report, to the effect that the Attorney General himself was not personally involved in the matter highlights the level of ignorance of the said Office of the Attorney General to the working of the International Law and its adjudicatory systems on such matters. With a view to refreshing our memories, the conviction of former Liberian President Charles Taylor was not on account of the former President having personally engaged in any cutting of limbs or killings in Sierra Leone or Liberia during their civil wars, but merely for being the head of the Government/Military which ultimately ‘benefited’ from the entire process.
Let me reiterate again at this juncture that perpetrators of any extra-judicial killings and damages suffered by others in the course of such illegalities must be adequately punished and adequate compensation paid to the estate of the victims of such illegalities. In like manner, reasonable and all efforts must be deployed to identifying the precise perpetrators - blanket stigmatization and condemnation of State institutions, particularly the Nigerian Army which continues to serve to curtail the rampaging activities of terror outfits must be avoided. Could the underlining objective of the present HRC Report be to demoralize and cause disaffection amongst our military in their present efforts at checkmating terror?
There are no doubt renegade entities in our military, just as exist in all military formations elsewhere. The individual elements who participated in the Apo-8 killings, be they Corporals, Captains, Generals or of whatsoever rank, ought to be identified and brought to book – and not the present efforts at rubbishing the entire Military of the Federal Republic. For goodness sake, this is the same Army that has performed creditably in several international peace and enforcement missions and has a well tested self-cleansing mechanism to weed out unprofessional within its midst.
After perusing the Odinkalu-led HRC's Report on the Apo-8 killings, germane questions the body will do well to respond is: "who is the real target of their diatribe? General Azubuike Ihejirika (who served as the Chief of Army Staff during the period in question and whose successes against terror earned the ire of Islamist elements in our core North), President Jonathan or the generality of the peoples of the Federal Republic who will bear the brunt of likely fallout's of the Report"?
The current efforts by the HRC to set up the Nigerian Army and its Commander-in-Chief and eventually the Nigerian Federation for likely subsequent international odium portends great harm to our polity and is most vicious, uncalled for and irresponsible.
AS THIS PIECE WAS BEING CONCLUDED, TERRORISTS EXPLODED YET ANOTHER BOMB IN A MAJOR BUS TERMINAL AT NYANYA, ABUJA, THE OUTSKIRTS OF NIGERIA'S FEDERAL CAPITAL. KILLING SCORES OF PEOPLE. MAY THE SOUL OF THE INNOCENT VICTIMS FIND PEACE.
WE SHALL PREVAIL DESPITE ALL ODDS -
Picture:The Nigerian Army
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