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AI Accuses FG of Shielding Military Officials, Boko Haram Members Who Commit Atrocities

Published

5 years ago

December 10, 2018

Eric

A foremost human rights group, Amnesty International, on Monday called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to urgently investigate the Nigerian government over alleged failures to sanction military commanders and terrorists suspected of grievous human rights abuses in the Boko Haram war.

“The Nigerian government is unwilling and unable to meet its obligations as a member of the ICC to investigate and prosecute both Boko Haram and the Nigerian military,” the group said in its reaction to fresh findings published by the ICC that reaffirmed a widespread lack of accountability on the Nigerian government.

The ICC’s office of the prosecutor said in the December 5 report that most of the Boko-Haram-linked cases being pursued by the Nigerian government are related to membership of, support for or failure to report terrorists.

The office of the prosecutor should urgently open “a full investigation into the atrocities that have been committed in northeast Nigeria,” Amnesty International’s Africa director for research and advocacy, Netsanet Belay, said in a statement accompanying the group’s latest report titled: ‘Willingly Unable: ICC Preliminary Examination and Nigeria’s Failure to Address Impunity for International Crimes’.

Mr Belay said since the Nigerian government’s prosecution of Boko Haram has focused only on membership or support for the sect rather than the horrific crimes of key actors in the insurgency, it was obvious that Nigerian authorities have only undertaken superficial criminal proceedings regarding crimes committed by Boko Haram; only a couple of which may be relevant for the conduct that may be covered by one of the potential six cases being reviewed by ICC prosecutors.

“The Nigerian government has no intention to undertake genuine investigations’ Mr Belay emphasised. “Instead it has pursued ‘sham’ criminal proceedings to ‘shield’ perpetrators from an ICC investigation and to give a ‘veneer’ of accountability in Nigeria.”

The report has also demonstrated that ‘mass trials’ conducted against suspected members of Boko Haram since October 2017 have been so flawed that it is impossible to conclude that those who were convicted were actually guilty of any crime at all.

In fact, many of these “mass trials are an effort to give a pretence of legality to the mass unlawful detentions committed by the Nigerian military throughout the conflict, which have seen thousands die in captivity through starvation, thirst and overcrowding, Amnesty International said.

Nailing the state actors

As Boko Haram terrorists continued their murderous campaign across Nigeria’s north-east, Nigerian security forces have also faced serious charges of violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law, including extrajudicial executions, mass arbitrary arrests and unlawful detentions, torture and other ill-treatment, enforced disappearances and rape.

As of June 2015, Amnesty International had documented that the Nigerian military forces had extra-judicially executed more than 1,200 people and arbitrarily arrested at least 20,000, of whom at least 7,000 have died as a result of the inhumane conditions in custody.

The group said its findings also showed that Nigeria has failed to open a single relevant criminal case against military officers and members of the Civilian Joint Task Force, an allied vigilante group, a situation that flouted the Rome Statute on crime against humanity.

Several panel of inquiries raised for the purpose of unearthing and correcting cases of abuses by the military have ended without any serious conclusion, Amnesty said.

“Despite much publicity and posturing neither military led inquiry – the Special Board of Inquiry or the Presidential investigation panel – was ever intended, designed or conducted with a view to result in criminal prosecutions, or even to identify perpetrators and recommend further criminal investigations or prosecutions,” it said.

Overcoming a distraction

Even though ICC prosecutors have published preliminary findings around rights abuses and killings in Nigeria in recent years, including their November 2015 damning report on military chiefs’ conduct in Boko Haram war and their ongoing inquiry into Shiite and pro-Biafran massacres, the Nigerian military only focused on the role of Amnesty International in amplifying the atrocities and their investigations.

“Amnesty International has become a major distraction that we have to overcome in the war against Boko Haram,” John Agim, a spokesperson for the Defence Headquarters, told PREMIUM TIMES Sunday afternoon. “They are always claiming a crime has been committed here and there but never presented any evidence.”

Mr Agim, a brigadier-general, said Amnesty International has evolved a habit of accusing only serving military commanders, indicating that its aim was to frustrate the government’s effort rather than help in ending the war or getting justice for victims.

“They usually spend years accusing serving commanders, but when those ones are out, they immediately leave them and shift their focus on the new ones in service,” Mr Agim said. “They should take any evidence they have to the ICC and leave the Nigerian government and military out of it.”

Featured

Stay Away from CBT Centres, JAMB Warns Parents, Threatens Arrest

Published

6 hours ago

April 18, 2024

Eric

As this year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) begins on Friday, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has vowed to arrest parents found near any Computer-Based Test (CBT) centre during the 2024 UTME exercise.

The directive was issued at the final briefing of the CBT centre owners, which was held virtually on Wednesday, 17th April, 2024.

The spokesman for JAMB, Fabian Benjamin, said this directive became necessary following the intrusive disposition of some parents during the Board’s previous exercises.

Benjamin, who quoted JAMB Registrar Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, said any parent, who disobeys the order would not only be arrested but his ward would also be disqualified from sitting for the examination.

Oloyede explained that this measure became necessary as it has been discovered over time that many of these intruding parents are facilitators of examination infractions while others have, by their actions, disrupted the Board’s examinations in the past.

He added that some miscreants also disguise as parents to infiltrate the centres to perpetrate all forms of infractions.

“The Board’s helmsman noted that going by the extant national policy on education, a candidate for the examination must have attained the age of 17 years.

“Therefore, it is evident that these parents had not allowed their wards to pass through the classes as defined in the document, hence the desperation to follow their wards to the examination venue with the aim of compromising examination officials.

“At any rate, it is clear to any discerning observer that these parents deserve to be sanctioned as they had obviously ‘smuggled’ underage children into the ranks of those scheduled to sit the examination,” the Board note through a statement.

Furthermore, the Registrar said all arrangements have been concluded for the conduct of the 2024 UTME, which will be held in over 700 CBT centres across the nation.

He disclosed that the Board expects a seamless exercise but it has nevertheless made adequate provision to tackle any technical glitch that might occur in the course of the examination.

He, however, warned that if a session experienced any technical challenge, candidates in subsequent sessions would be allowed to sit their examination as scheduled while the candidates in the challenged session would be rescheduled for the last session for the day or the following day or even further depending on the centre schedules.

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Oyo Govt Demolishes Operational Base of Yoruba Nation Agitators

Published

6 hours ago

April 18, 2024

Eric

The Oyo State government, on Wednesday, demolished a building serving as the operational base of the Yoruba Nation agitators led by Modupe Onitiri-Abiola, in Ibadan.

Onitiri-Abiola, one of the widows of late Bashorun M.KO Abiola, had declared the creation of the so-called Yoruba Nation in a video posted online, which has been widely condemned.

Last Saturday, some armed men in military uniforms invaded the Oyo State Secretariat, with the motive to forcefully take over the State House of Assembly, before they were dislodged by the combined efforts of police and troops for the Nigeria Army 2 Division..

Mr. Fatai Owoseni, Special Adviser on Security Matters to Governor Seyi Makinde, confirmed the demolition of the house located at Toye Oyesola Street in Ibadan South West Local Government Area.

Already, no fewer than 29 suspects – including a lecturer – arrested in connection with the foiled armed invasion were on Wednesday arraigned by the police before a Chief Magistrates’ Court in Ibadan.

In a case with charge number Mi/520c/2024 between the Commissioner of Police and the 29 suspects, they were accused of a seven-count charge of treasonable felony, unlawful society, illegal possession of firearms, and conduct likely to cause breach of peace.

Inspector Bakare Rasaq, the Investigative Police Officer (IPO) at the State Criminal Investigation Department, Iyaganku, Ibadan, said the offence contravenes, and is punishable under Section 516 of the Criminal Code, Cap 38, Vol. II, Laws of Oyo State of Nigeria, 2000.

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PDP BoT Queries Damagum, Anyanwu’s Continued Stay in Office

Published

7 hours ago

April 18, 2024

Eric

The Board of Trustees of the Peoples Democratic Party has queried the continued stay in office of the party’s acting National Chairman, Umar Damagum, and National Secretary, Samuel Anyanwu.

Recently, many party members have raised concerns about the ongoing tenure of Damagum and Anywanwu in their respective positions.

Previously serving as the PDP National Deputy Chairman (North), Damagum assumed the role of acting National Chairman following the court’s suspension of the party’s National Chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, in March of the preceding year.

With the National Secretary being selected as the PDP candidate for the Imo State 2023 governorship election, the South zone has been grappling with nominating a replacement. Despite this, he, along with other party leaders, contested and retained the position of party secretary after losing to Governor Hope Uzodinnma.

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