Again, Right Groups Accuse Nigerian Security Of Killing Over 32k Unarmed Citizens Of Southeast In 9 Years

Posted by Ignatius Okpara Featured, Latest Headlines, News Across Nigeria Sunday, December 22nd, 2024

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) Famous human rights group, International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety), have again accused personnel of the Nigerian Armed forces, the police, paramilitaries, and Killer Vigilante organizations, of secretly killing of about 32,300 unarmed Civilians in South East Nigeria in the past nine years and four months (August 2015- December 2024).

It alleged that perpetrators of the heinous crime did so, using the proscribed Indigenous people of Biafra IPOB/Eastern Security Network ESN/ Biafra Terrorism as a pretext.

Recall that the group had in the recent past during similar media outings, accused the Nigerian security operatives of sending innocent citizens of the South East zone of the country to their untimely graves as they kill them indiscriminately almost on a daily basis.

This number was contained in two special international reports on rights abuses and violations in the east prepared by InterSociety, and released during a world press conference presided over by the organization’s Board Chairman, Emeka Umeagbalasi, and other top officials of the organization in Enugu on Sunday.

The well researched document with 26 chapters and 272 pages, was authored by senior staffers of organization, which includes, it’s Board Chairman, a Criminologist, Chief Umeagbalasi, Barrister Chidinma Udegbunam, Deputy leader/Head Campaign and publicity department, Barrister Chinwe Umeche, Head Democracy and good governance program, Barr. Obianuju Joy Igboeli, Head, Liberties and rule of law and Barrister Ndidiamaka Bernard.

According to the report christened: Nigeria :Ocean of Innocent Blood flowing in the East” said alleged massacre of citizens in the region has become worrisome, and calls for urgent intervention by the international community and other relevant rights bodies.

It explained that “Nigeria Ocean of Innocent Blood Flowing In The East” represents a graphic, shocking and chilling account of the Nigerian Military and other Security Forces (police crack squads.

Others are, “secret police, sub-state actor killer vigilantes and killer government task forces) Siege and Terror (armed state actor conduct-atrocities) in the East since August 2015 and further captures the untold story of what is going on in the Region with regard to violent criminal activities by armed non-state actors including government-linked and non-government-linked armed non-state actors.

“Relatedly, “The Human Rights made in Nigeria” is a compilation of relevant and available local, regional and international human rights, humanitarian and universal human rights and rule of law compliant legal provisions and safeguards regulating the lawful and unlawful conducts and activities of armed citizens in Nigeria or any part thereof including armed state actors and armed non-state actors and their commanders or leaders, aiders and abettors.

“The two special international reports read out to newsmen by Barrister Udegbunam are built on documented reports dating back to 2015 or before then; compilation and computation of which started in the middle of May 2024 (past seven months) using in-depth research and investigation skills and techniques.

It further explained that the “Ocean Of Innocent Blood Flowing In The East” is fundamentally targeted at exposing external and internal forces found to have been responsible for the present war-zone situation of the South-East and the South-South regions of Eastern Nigeria.

“The “warzone” state of public and citizens’ security and safety and their properties include grisly and egregious human rights violations and abuses.

“Mass and targeted killings and property burnings outside the law, body lacerations, abductions, disappearances, torture and other inhuman or degrading treatments or punishments and security sector duty-post corruption particularly military, police and paramilitary roadblock and barracks extortions and other atrocities by armed non-state actors.

“Many non-state actors involved are found to have been procured and clandestinely sponsored by external state actors and their conspiratorial internal state actors both armed and unarmed including some past and present public office holders within and outside Eastern Nigeria particularly in the South-East.

“Intellectually and forensically Identified in the Mother Report (“Ocean Of Innocent Blood Flowing In The East”) are two sets of “egregious crimes against defenseless persons, their properties and the society”. namely: “state actor crimes or state-actor generated insecurity and other unsafe conditions” and “non-state actor crimes or non-state actor generated insecurity and other unsafe conditions”.

“The above highlighted heinous crimes are severely punishable and effectively controllable under Nigeria’s criminal, human rights and humanitarian laws or provisions and their safeguards including the Treaty Laws and Nigeria’s Regional and International Obligations.

“It was the research and investigative finding by “Ocean Of Innocent Blood Flowing In The East” that the Nigerian Government and the country’s heads of security forces establishments hardly pay attention to the perpetration and perpetuation of the “state actor crimes” and their perpetrators, aiders and abettors.

They posited that “the country’s security chiefs are also found to have cultivated the habit of incorrigibility and impunity as they hardly hold their subordinates accountable for their ‘line-of-duty conduct-atrocities”

“Authorities of the Nigerian Armed Forces and the Police, for instance, have become incurably incorrigible and facilitators, aiders and abettors of state atrocities.

“They also look as if they are now incurably incapable of taking corrections or being corrected.

“Disinformation, misinformation, twisting of facts or facts concoctions, corrupt intelligence, hearsay conclusions and discriminatory policing and soldiering on the grounds of ethnic and religious biases are further found to have become the stock-in-trade of the Nigerian Security Forces (NSFs) and their management authorities particularly in Eastern Nigeria”

This they argued led to indiscriminate resort to false labeling, ethno-religious profiling, class stigmatization, mass criminalization, hearsay conclusions.

“Discriminatory law enforcements, criminalization of civil wrongs/civil conducts, recriminalization and conversion of simple offenses and misdemeanors into violent offenses of “terrorism”, “insurgency”, “insurrection”, “treason” and “treasonable felonies”, etc.; using “IPOB/ESN/Biafra Terrorism” as a pretext.

“All the above have been responsible for the killing outside the law of tens of thousands of defenseless citizens in the East particularly in the South-East, torture of hundreds of thousands of others and abduction and permanent disappearance of additional thousands in the past nine years and four months or August 30, 2015, to December 31, 2024.

“The Nigerian Security Forces (NSFs) and their management authorities are further found by the Special International Report (“Ocean Of Innocent Blood Flowing In The East”) to have operated or coordinated their law enforcement operations outside the laid down rules and regulations including the International Rules of Engagement.

“Tens of thousands of defenseless citizens and their properties in the East have been killed or wantonly destroyed outside the law since August 2015 and controversially labeled “gunned down IPOB/ESN terrorists/oil thieves”.

“The Nigerian Defense Headquarters, for instance, had on Dec 5, 2024, claimed that it “killed 666 IPOB/ESN terrorists from Jan to Dec 2024” alone.

It added: “The Defense Headquarters’ announcement did not include defenseless and unarmed citizens, dominated by male citizens of productive age-brackets, abducted in their thousands from the South-East and some parts of the South-South, face-bagged and secretly bundled in the hours of the blue-law to secret military and other security forces’ locations in the North where this Special International Report found that they have died in their hundreds in secret detention facilities.

“Or those shot and left to die untreated; or those abducted and secretly shot and killed and their lifeless body-persons permanently disappeared without traces till date.

“The statistics given by the Nigerian Defense Headquarters also did not include hundreds of others killed outside the law by the country’s police “crack and tactical squads”, numbering over eight .

“Police Counter Terrorism, Police Rapid Response Squad, Police SARS, Police SWAT, Police Anti Kidnapping, Police STS, Police Anti Cult, Police Highway Patrols, etc.)central formations and dozens of their subordinate formations cutting across the five South-East States and those of Delta, Rivers, etc.

“Strikingly noted is the fact that for the first time in the history of human rights and security and safety research and investigation in Nigeria or any part thereof, reports and statements publicly released by Nigerian Security Forces (NSFs).

“Namely: police, army, navy, air force, secret police, paramilitaries and sub-state actor vigilantes have forensically been subjected by the Intersociety Researchers and Investigators to expert-interrogation and unbiased reviews; to fish out facts and fictions contained therein; using available local and international legal and procedural instruments, processes, procedures and safeguards contained in written laws.

“Ocean Of Innocent Blood Flowing In The East” was built on statistics and facts derived from “close and open sources” including declassified or publicly disclosed reports or statements of Nigerian Armed Forces, Nigeria Police, DSS, National Security Adviser, Attorney General of the Federation, Chief of Army Staff, Chief of Defense Staff/Defense Headquarters, Inspector General of Police and past and present persons in charge of such offices.

“Executive Summary Of “Ocean Of Innocent Blood Flowing In The East”:

The “Ocean Of Innocent Blood Flowing In Eastern Nigeria” Is A Catalogue Of How Officers And Personnel Of The Armed Forces (Army, Air Force And Navy), The Police And The DSS, Joined By The Paramilitaries And Killer-Vigilantes Used “IPOB/ESN/BIAFRA Terrorism” As A Pretext To Secretly Massacre 22, 500 Unarmed Civilians And Openly Killed 9,800 Others (Totaling Over 32,300) In The Past Nine Years And Four Months (August 2015-Dec 2024) Of Military Siege And Terror In The East; During Which Tens Of Thousands Were Unlawfully Detained And Tortured.

” Over 6000 Blindfolded Or Face-Bagged And Bundled At Late Night From The East And Dumped Uninvestigated And Untried In Secret Military Locations And Prisons In Seven Northern States Of Niger, Kogi, Nasarawa, Benue, Kaduna, Zamfara And FCT (Abuja) Inclusive Of Thousands Dumped To die Or Subjected to Kangaroo “Trials” Inside WAWA Army Cantonment In Niger State And Dozens Of Weekly Custodial Deaths Thereto;

“During Which, Too, Over 300 Igbo Communities Were Raided, 6000 Civilian Houses Razed, 180,000 Displaced, 1million Frightened And Forced To Abandon their Homes And Flee, N450billion Defenseless Civilian Properties Lost To Military Burnings And Destructions, N3trillion (Presently About $2billion Or Previously About $5billion) Corruptly Seized And Illicitly Pocketed At Roadblocks And Other Gun-Points.

“And Estimated 2.7million Illicit Small Arms And Light Weapons And Their Ammunitions Aided to Be Proliferated Including Estimated 400,000 In The Hands Of About 20,000 Fulani Jihadists And Allied Others Occupying Estimated 1000 Secret Locations In The East Including Forests, Bushes And Farmlands.

“Also During Which (August 2015-December 2024) Government-Linked And Non-Government-Linked Armed Criminal Entities Including Counterfeit Biafra Agitators, Recruited Niger Delta Jihadist Mercenaries, Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen, Jihadist Fulani Bandits.

“South-East/Igbo Land-Born-And-Bred Hausa-Fulani Jihadist Recruits, Fulani Cattle Owners’ Criminal Vigilantes And Other Jihadist Mercenaries From Black And Maghreb African Countries; Improperly Disarmed And Demobilized Niger Delta Militants, Camouflaged “Biafra Freedom Agitators”, Subversive Elements Within Security Forces Or Security Forces-Linked

“Unknown Gunmen”, Government-Linked Hit Squads, Criminal Vigilantes And “Street Criminal Entities” Such As Hundreds of “Kidnappers-For-Ransom” Squads, etc., Killed Over 14,500 Defenseless Citizen.

“Seized Estimated 65,000 At Gunpoint And Forced 55,000 to Pay Ransoms Estimated At N500billion And Additional N50billion Arising From Estimated 10,000 Millenium Automobiles Seized From Kidnap-For-Ransom Victims (Totaling N550billion).

“During Which Estimated 6,500 (10%) Of The Seized 65,000 Victims Who Could Not Pay The Ransoms Demanded Were Killed And 3,500 Others Pardoned And Set Free Under “Ill-Health And Humanitarian Conditions”; During Which 55,000 Others Were Tortured And Set Free After Paying The Ransoms Demanded And Agreed At Gunpoint.

“The Special International Report further catalogued and exposed massive arbitrary arrests, perpetual detentions arising from uninvestigated and un-triable phantom allegations.

They equally accused the security forces of “cangaroo arraignments, late night abduction and face-bagging of unarmed Igbo civilians to secret military detention facilities in northern Nigeria, torture and bodily lacerations, open killings and secret executions, enforced disappearances, dead body persons’ disappearances and criminal interments.

“Perpetual concealment of arrested and abducted citizens’ whereabouts and denial of access to their families, lawyers and physicians; invasion and wanton destruction of civilian dwelling houses, false labeling, mass and class criminalization and stigmatization, ethno religious profiling, prosecutorial vindictiveness, hearsay conclusions, military and police roadblock and barack-extortions and selective law enforcement operations, etc..

“All arising from the ongoing military siege and terror in Eastern Nigeria, using “IPOB/ESN/Biafra Terrorism” as a pretext.

“In statistical conclusion, therefore, all the above indicated that the deployed Nigerian Security Forces (Army, Air Force, Navy, Police, DSS, sub-State actor Vigilantes and Paramilitaries) in the East atrociously killed members of defenseless civilian population dominated by Igbo citizens more than twice higher than (32,300) those killed by armed criminal entities (14,500) who the security forces are deployed with public arms and funds to fish out, prosecute and stop from harming them.

“The deployed security forces and their officers and personnel and high commands were also found to have violently seized and illicitly pocketed, by way of extortion and looting, criminal monies and other properties (over N3trillion) belonging to defenseless Easterners almost six times higher than those seized and stolen by criminal entities (N550billion).

“The drafted security forces were further found to have burned down or destroyed civilian houses and other properties (N450billion) over seven times higher than those burned down or destroyed by criminal entities (about N60billion).

It also alleged that the security forces also perpetrated the referenced conduct-atrocities with impunity ten times higher than violent crimes and criminalities perpetrated by armed criminal entities which the security forces are deployed and publicly armed and funded to checkmate, track down; and apprehend and prosecute their offenders.

The group said ” it is very important to clarify that the above enumerated “outside the law” killings and property violence in Eastern Nigeria did not include death of violently and offensively armed members of non-State actor criminal entities or members of the armed opposition groups; and members of the drafted Nigerian security forces (State actor and non-State actor fighting parties) who died in gun duels or in exchange of gunfire.

“Technically and internationally referred to as “battlefield casualties”. The above position of ours is strictly in line with the international best practices under the UN System including the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Three Protocols of 1977 and 2005 as well as the International Rules of Engagement.

“Though such killings or deaths are morally condemned but they certainly and conventionally did not count.