On December 12, 2015, some members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) were doing their normal procession in Zaira and blocked the convoy of the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Burutai. After some altercations, the army promptly mowed them down and for added measure, levelled their Hussainiyya centre, brutalised and arrested the leader of the group, Ibraheem Zakzaky and his wife. To cover up the gruesome killings, the army took away the corpses of those killed, set fire on them and buried them in mass graves.
When the news broke, the military attempted to lie its way through, accusing the sect of trying to assassinate the Chief of Army Staff and denying that the army massacred a large number of the group’s members. However, a panel set up by the Kaduna state government to investigate the killings finally indicted the Nigerian army for the Zaria massacre. The Kaduna state government confirmed to the panel that 347 IMN members were killed and buried in secret mass graves. Specifically, the panel indicted Maj. General Adeniyi Oyebade, the General Officer Commanding the Nigerian Army’s 1st Devision in Kaduna for authorising the operation. The Panel stopped short of indicting the Chief of Army Staff General Burutai who also bears responsibility for, and has defended, the killings on several occasions. From the videos of the encounter between the army Chief’s convoy and the sect members, it was clear the situation does not require the use of lethal force. Teargas, at worse, could have been used to dislodge them. But the army chose to massacre them, destroyed their centre and have continued to detain its leader illegally for having the effrontery to stand in its way. As the Panel rightly found out, the killings are a crime against humanity and those responsible should be brought to justice.
However, in a bizarre twist, the Kaduna state government banned the IMN from operating in Kaduna instead of pushing for the punishment of all those indicted. Also security agencies have begun a systematic cleansing of the group in major states in Northern Nigeria. Consequently, the group’s members have been brutally maimed and killed in Jos, Abuja, Kano, and Katsina while protesting government’s actions against the group and the continued unlawful detention of their leader, his wife and other members of the group since their arrest in 2015. The Inspector General of Police was even quoted as justifying the killings of IMN’s members in Kano recently.
Also, last week, Amnesty International released a report, backed by videos, photographs and eye witness accounts showing that between August 2015 and August 2016, “the Nigerian security forces, led by the military, embarked on a chilling campaign of extrajudicial executions and violence resulting in the deaths of at least 150 peaceful pro-Biafra protesters in the south east of the country.” The report, “a product of intense investigation comprising analysis of 87 videos, 122 photographs and 146 eye witness testimonies relating to demonstrations and other gatherings between August 2015 and August 2016 consistently shows that the military fired live ammunition with little or no warning to disperse crowds. It also finds evidence of mass extrajudicial executions by security forces, including at least 60 people shot dead in the space of two days in connection with events to mark Biafra Remembrance Day.” According to the report, “this deadly repression of pro-Biafra activists is further stoking tensions in the south east of Nigeria. This reckless and trigger-happy approach to crowd control has caused at least 150 deaths and we fear the actual total might be far higher.”
Expectedly, the President has kept mum on the killings. His famous body language shows that he approves of the killings and, in fact, may have authorised them.
Earlier in the week, there was a raging debate on whether Nigeria should follow the lead of South Africa, Burundi and the Gambia in ditching the Rome Statute setting up the International Court of Justice at The Hague. The three African countries gave notices of pulling out of the court accusing it of targeting only Africans. True, all 39 people indicted by the court have been Africans. It is also true that the court has been caught up in high wire geopolitics and super power contestations. For instance, the United States, Russia, China, Japan, India, Pakistan, Israel and Turkey have not ratified the treaty. Russia, last week, also withdrew from the court. The United States signed the Rome Statute of July17, 1998 but did not ratify the treaty. It withdrew from the Rome Statute in May 2002, rejecting the courts authority over its personnel. In such circumstances, the court is hamstrung and cannot try citizens of such powerful nations. Africa’s submission to the ICC therefore exists within political and structural inequalities in the global arena.
The court’s importance however, must not be in doubt. Most African and third world states suffer from severe institutional constraints and absence of laws that the local courts are unable to or even capable of providing justice to victims of crime against humanity like the ones happening in Nigeria. In fact, in most African states where there are conflicts, the states themselves are sometimes the criminals and worst perpetrators of crimes against humanity. Is it any wonder that most of the cases involving Africans have been reported, investigated, prosecuted and adjudicated largely by Africans who are frustrated by the failure of the African Union and their countries to prevent such abuses in the first place or hold perpetrators accountable for their actions? In any case, the court’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda is from Gambia while the senior trial lawyer, Jean-Jacques Badibanga is from the DRC. A number of the judges who sit on the cases are also Africans.
Of course, African states have a right to feel aggrieved that the court targets only Africans. But it is precisely because African states do not have the capacity to hold offenders to account or are themselves the criminals and murderers. Pray, if Nigeria withdraws from the court, what hope, no matter how faint, exists of bringing to justice elements in the army and /or their Commander-in-Chief who orders the wholesale massacre of defenceless civilians – his own people he has sworn to protect?
If we are to accept the definition of terrorism as the use of violence or threat of violence in order to purport a political, religious, or ideological change, what is the difference then between, say Boko Haram and the Nigerian Army or state? Of course, many Nigerians do not see the danger in a terrorist state and army. Neither did Germans under the Nazis. But the eternal words of Martin Niemoller rings true even today:
“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
Christopher Akor
