Featured

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

Published

7 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

Tinubu Nominates Oyedele As Minister of State for Finance, Moves Anite-Uzoka to Budget Ministry

Published

11 hours ago

March 3, 2026

Eric

A statement signed by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy Bayo Onanuga, has announced that “President Bola Tinubu has nominated Taiwo Oyedele as the minister of state for finance, replacing Doris Anite-Uzoka.

“Mrs Anite-Uzoka will now move to the Ministry of Budget and National Planning, as the Minister of State, her third portfolio in the administration.

“President Tinubu has today conveyed the nomination of Mr Oyedele to the Senate for confirmation in a letter to the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio.

“Until President Tinubu nominated him as a minister, Mr Oyedele from Ikaram, Akoko, Ondo State, was the chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, which overhauled Nigeria’s tax system.

“Mr Oyedele, 50, is an economist, accountant and public policy expert.

“He attended Yaba College of Technology, where he obtained a Higher National Diploma (HND) in accountancy and finance. He attended Oxford Brookes University and earned a BSc in applied accounting.

“He also completed executive education programmes at the London School of Economics, Yale University, the Gordon Institute of Business Science, and the Harvard Kennedy School.

“Mr Oyedele spent 22 years of his working career at PwC, joining in 2001 and rising to become the Fiscal Policy Partner and Africa Tax Leader.

“Mr Oyedele is also a professor at Babcock University in Ogun State and a visiting scholar at the Lagos Business School.”

Featured

Defection: Atiku’s Son, Adamu, Resigns As Adamawa Commissioner

Published

16 hours ago

March 3, 2026

Eric

Adamu Abubakar, the first son of former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, has resigned as Adamawa State’s commissioner for works and energy development, days after Governor Ahmadu Fintiri defected from the Peoples Democratic Party to the All Progressives Congress.

Abubakar’s resignation letter, dated 2 March 2026, was addressed to the governor through the Secretary to the State Government. He gave no reason for his departure.

The timing is pointed. Fintiri announced his defection to the APC in a statewide broadcast last Friday, saying his cabinet and the PDP’s state structure had moved with him. Within 24 hours, 22 commissioners and special advisers publicly announced they were following suit. Abubakar, whose father remains one of the PDP’s most prominent national figures, was not among them.

In a statement issued Monday night, Abubakar’s media aide Abdulaziz Jauro said the former commissioner thanked the governor for the opportunity to serve and pledged continued loyalty to the administration’s developmental agenda. He also expressed gratitude to his father “for granting him the moral support and blessing to serve the people of Adamawa State” — a line that, read in context, suggests Atiku was consulted on the decision.

Abubakar said his resignation was not a withdrawal from public life. “This does not mark the end of his commitment to public service,” the statement read, “but rather the beginning of new avenues for developmental collaboration.”

The resignation leaves unresolved the question of whether it reflects a political break with the governor over his defection or a personal decision unconnected to the broader party realignment now reshaping Adamawa’s political landscape.

Featured

DSS Nabs Man over Assassination Attempt on Peter Obi

Published

18 hours ago

March 3, 2026

Eric

Nigeria’s Department of State Services (DSS) has detained a man in connection with the recent attack and alleged assassination threats targeting Labour Party’s 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi.

According to AIT, the shooting incident took place on February 24, 2026, in Benin City, Edo State, during a political gathering attended by Obi and several figures from the African Democratic Congress (ADC). The meeting was hosted by former APC National Chairman, John Oyegun. Gunmen reportedly opened fire at the venue, causing panic and forcing attendees to disperse for safety.

According to security sources, shortly after the attack, an individual identified as Udeme Monday Stephen allegedly took to social media claiming responsibility and issuing additional threats against Obi, warning of further violence.

Intelligence officials reportedly initiated swift investigations, employing digital tracing and forensic tools that led to the arrest of the 26-year-old suspect in Rivers State. He is said to be a teacher at a private secondary school in the Eliozu area of Obio-Akpor Local Government Area.

The suspect remains in DSS custody and is expected to face prosecution. The agency reiterated its commitment to responding to credible threats and safeguarding lives and national interests without bias.