The call made on Saturday, 24th March 2018 by a former
Army Chief and Defense Minister in Nigeria, Retired Lt Gen Theo Danjuma to all
Nigerians of non Muslim faith particularly members of Christian faith in
Northeast, North-central and Southern parts of the country to defend themselves
against the ongoing widespread massacres across the country by radical armed
Islamic groups such as Islamist Fulani and Boko Haram killers.
Gen Theo Danjuma
also joined other informed and courageous Nigerians to accuse the Armed Forces
of Nigeria and the country’s security establishments’ mangers of protecting the
attackers particularly the Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen and aiding their atrocious
conducts. We therefore see his call as not only grossly belated but also
incomplete without addition of urgent steps by the United Nation System to set
up an international commission of inquiry under the Chapter VII of the United
Nations’ Charter so as to unravel the remote and immediate causes and
perpetrators as well as profiteers of the killings.
The panic,
hastiness, emptiness, tactlessness, self indictment and self guilt contained in
the reactions to the call by the duo of Nigerian Army and the Federal Ministry
of Defense further showcase necessity, urgency, inexcusability and
inevitability of the international inquiries under demand.
We make bold to
say that the indictable body language of the present Federal Government in the
ongoing killings as well as emerging facts and developments have clearly shown
that the external demystification and solution to the unabated and raging
butcheries in Nigeria are practicll rooted in the confines of int’l criminal
and civil inquiries under UN System alongside other local content solutions. It
is recalled that we have earlier identified gross lopsided security and
paramilitary appointments and compositions as a major factor internally
responsible for intensification and escalation of the butcheries.
In the time of
the immediate past, such int’l inquiries under demand were launched by the UN
System in several countries where the fears or eruption of “complex
humanitarian emergencies” or grievous violations of human rights or commission
and aiding (by the State) of heinous crimes against humanity by the governing
States or violent pro government or opposition groups were heightened or became beyond the
capacities of governing municipal territories; especially where there were
strong point-blank or circumstantial evidence of State protection, aiding,
conspiracy, condoning, abetment, complicity, unwillingness and inability.
Instances also
abound where such inquiries were timely invoked or instituted; leading to
return of stability and collective security, justice and mercy; truth,
forgiveness and reconciliation to the former troubled territories or societies.
Where such were the case such as in Lebanon, Pakistan and Darfur (Sudan), the
affected countries were relatively saved from drifting into total collapse or
failed States. But where they were belatedly invoked, pariah or failed State status
became the end result. We saw such in Libya, Somalia, Afghanistan and Syria;
collectively referred today as “the world’s failed States”.
Typical example
of such international inquiries and associated UN interventions was in Lebanon
after the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri and 21 others by
suspected Iranian backed Lebanese Hezbollah militias on 14th February 2005; leading to
setting up of the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon. Another example was in
Pakistan after the assassination of former Prime Minister Ms Benazir Bhutto on
27th December 2007 and associated political turmoil including riots.
The assassination took place few weeks to the country’s presidential election
fixed for January 2008; leading to UN enquiry set up on 5th February
2009.
Of particular
and striking of all was the “UN Int’l Commission of Inquiry for Darfur
(Sudan)”. Acting under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, on 18
September 2004, the Security Council of UN adopted resolution 1564 requesting
that the Secretary-General ‘rapidly establish an international commission of
inquiry’ in order immediately to investigate reports of violations of
international humanitarian law and human rights law in Darfur (Sudan) by all
parties including the strong accusation of complicity of the Sudanese central
Government of Gen Omar Hassan el-Bashir and its aiding of the Janjaweed
Islamist guerillas. Other terms of reference were to determine whether or not
acts of genocide have occurred, and to identify the perpetrators of such
violations with a view to ensuring that those responsible are held accountable.
Based on a
thorough analysis of the information gathered in the course of its
investigations, the Commission established that the Government of the Sudan and
the Janjaweed are responsible for serious violations of international human
rights and humanitarian law amounting to crimes under international law.
In particular,
the Commission found that Government forces and militias conducted
indiscriminate attacks, including killing of civilians, torture, enforced
disappearances, destruction of villages, rape and other forms of sexual
violence, pillaging and forced displacement, throughout Darfur. These acts were
conducted on a widespread and systematic basis, and therefore amounted to
crimes against humanity.
In July 2008,
the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno Ocampo,
accused al-Bashir of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in Darfur.
The court issued an arrest warrant for al-Bashir on 4 March
2009 on counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, but ruled that there
was insufficient evidence to prosecute him for genocide.
We therefore join
Gen Theophilus Danjuma by repeating our several warnings to the likes of UN, AU
and western democracies that Nigeria is steadily drifting towards the Somali
way. Gen Danjuma as one of the strongest supporters of the present diarchic
Administration in Nigeria and one of perceived personalities responsible for
Nigeria’s present political, economic and social woes must have been shocked
and traumatized by the level of unprovoked attacks and killings perpetrated
against members of his Takum tribe and Christian faith alongside other non
Muslim nationalities of Northern and Southern Nigeria.
This, also, must
have been occasioned by the fact that no sane member of human family keeps a
sealed lip or mouth-gums himself or herself for forever when his or her rights
of existence, social identity and religion are illegitimately questioned and
subjected to serious threat of extermination or annihilation; irrespective of
his or her career, political or economic attainment. Totality of them
constitutes core and non-tradable social values of human family and existence.
Nigerian policy
makers and managers particularly those presently holding political and
legislative positions at the Federal level must be reminded again that in the event
of full scale and provoked uncontrollable civil warfare, AK-47 rifles and their
likes being paraded, wielded and rioted today by the aggressors will become the
least instruments of war. The serving and retired generals (apologists and
instigators of religious radicalism) instigating the attacks and protecting the
attackers today will end up in IDP or refugee camps as refugees or IDP
destitute. Instances abound in the Republics of Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and
Zaire (DRC), etc of not long past.
In modern theory
of violence, therefore, there are no sole repositories or possessors of same.
In such provoked retaliatory civil war; animals, ants, herbs, substances and
human brains can be transformed into more formidable and menacing instruments
of retaliatory and victorious or devastating civil warfare than AK-47 assault
rifles and their likes. This is the centrality of Gen Theo Danjuma’s message to
the Federal Government of Nigeria and its operators; warning them to act beyond
their present primordial and ethno-religious cleavages before it is too late.
Gen Danjuma’s
call; though grossly belated, should not be treated dismissively by all and
sundry including the Government of Nigeria as it is presently doing; the United
Nations and the entire members of the int’l community. Granted that it is
strongly held in several social quarters that Gen Theo Danjuma is one of the
country’s ex public office holders believed by many to be living far above his
legitimate incomes and of stupendous wealth unbecoming of a military pensioner;
in addition to his not-too-good roles during his career in the country’s
military’s inglorious epoch particularly in the 60s, but his latest call is a
welcome development and tantamount to
that of wise words of an “Amicus Curiae from Military Citadel”.
In matters
bordering on commission or fears of commission or possibility of commission of
crimes against humanity or perpetration of widespread human rights abuses;
whipping or invocation of ethnic cleavages or primordial sentiments in defense
or protection of the perpetrators and their atrocious conducts are set aside;
on account of the fact that human rights are indivisible and universal;
transcending beyond boundaries, tribes, classes, races and religions including
territorial State and Stateless societies.
Such a strong
worded voice from a former chief of army staff (October 1979-April 1980) and
minister of defense (June 1999-May 2003) also exposes undeniable and
conspiratorial roles of members and headships of the Nigerian Armed Forces and
the entire security establishments in the killings. It further demystifies the
despicable and unpatriotic roles of the present central Government especially
its ongoing Nollywood Movies called counter-insurgency operations against Boko
Haram insurgency in the Northeast.
Just recently, Nigerian
media was awash with breaking news of a character called “Sergeant David Bako”
who said he has deserted the Nigerian Army and made a startling revelation of
another Nollywood Movie called “Dapchi
Girls’ Abduction & their Return”; which he claimed to have executed
alongside other soldiers camouflaging as “Boko Haram insurgents” at the cost of
N80m presidential bribe; with his cuts being N3m. Such is the continuation of
drama unfolding in the country since June 2015 in the so called
“counter-insurgency operations in the Northeast”.
We hereby call
on the United Nations and other members of the int’l community to take urgent
steps to save Nigeria from drifting into “complex humanitarian emergencies” or
widespread ethno-religious killings and counter killings (civil war) occasioned
by ongoing State aided butcheries in the name of “reading Koran in the Sea”.
Nigerians will like to find out from the said UN inquiries the number of
Nigerians killed by the Fulani Jihadists since June 2015, their religious faith
and sacred places of worship and properties destroyed or torched. The number of
violent Fulani Herdsmen killed by retaliatory Nigerians since then, if any,
should also be unravelled by the UN’s int’l commission of inquiry under demand.
The roles of the
Government of Nigeria and its security heads in the ongoing butcheries by
Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen should also thoroughly be investigated by the United
Nations. The inquiries under demand should inclusively investigate the ongoing
strong accusations levelled against the central Government in Nigeria of its
aiding and abetting the killings particularly its inability and unwillingness
to protect the victim populations; uncover the sources of sophisticated
firearms used by the Jihadists and fish out and put them on trial in accordance
with existing local and int’l laws.
The roles of
Government of Nigeria in its counter operations against Boko Haram also call
for international involvement and scrutiny so as to ensure full compliance by
the Government of Nigeria and the non State violent actors involved with the
international laws including the Geneva Conventions or Laws of Internal
Conflict of 1949 and the Int’l Human Rights and Humanitarian Laws. Our
call for UN involvement through institution of criminal and civil inquiries is
in furtherance of the powers and mandates of the UN under the Chapter VII of its
Charter of 1945.
Signed:
For: Int’l Society for Civil
Liberties & the Rule of Law
Emeka
Umeagbalasi (Criminologist & Graduate of Security Studies)
Board Chairman
Mobile
Line: +2348174090052
Barr
Obianuju Joy Igboeli
Head,
Civil Liberties & Rule of Law Program
Email:
igboeliobianuju@gmail.com
Barr Jacinta Ezinwanne
Head, Public Security & Safety Program
Email: ezinwannejacinta3@gmail.com
