The attention of International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law is drawn over a recent report by the Sundiata Post;
an online media outfit that the Nigerian Army had dispatched an
investigative team to Aba to ascertain the veracity or otherwise of the 9th
of February 2016 massacre of 22 members of the Indigenous People of
Biafra (IPOB) and dumping of 13 of them in Aba-Port Harcourt Road Burrow
Pit. The report quoted the Provost Marshal of the Nigerian Army, Brig
General Ayuba Tedman Hamman as having disclosed this during the
commissioning of the newly established Human Rights Desk, Department of
Civil-Military Affairs, at the Army Headquarters in Abuja.
The Sundiata Post also
quoted Brig General Hamman as saying “most times, the claims made
against the army are either unsubstantiated or out rightly exaggerated”
and that “even when verified, most of the violations usually attributed
to their officers and soldiers, are perpetrated by some other forces
during joint operations”.
Brig General Hamman was
further quoted as saying “I want to say that since COAS (Buratai) was
appointed I have been inundated with complaints of human rights
reports”.
“We found out that a lot of
cases, when reports are being filed and sent to us or commence
investigation they become impatient and we don’t see those people again.
There are a lot of cases that you have to avail us more information but
they are nowhere to be found.
“We have sent an
investigative team to ascertain the issue in Abia State about the
complaint that our men shot some people involved in peaceful protests. I
have confidence in our team and I know this was a joint operation but
since we are part of it, we still need to verify. We investigate and at
the end of the day prosecute the culprits “.
We welcome the decision of the Army to investigate the massacre provided it is credible and not a cover-up mission. We
shall also welcome and cooperate with any other local or international
investigation mission over the massacre provided the investigation team
is credible and unbiased.
We wish to inform
that till date, neither the lead-petitioner (Intersociety) nor the
victims and their relatives or IPOB organization have been contacted by
the said investigation team from the office of the Army Provost
Marshall.
We will not be part of any armchair investigation or investigation warranting invitation of the lead-petitioner (Intersociety)
or group-victim (IPOB) or individual victims (IPOB members/supporters)
to the army headquarters or any other army formation or barracks. Any
serious minded and credible investigation team should be able to go
round so as to see the crime scenes and hear from the victims and the
lead-petitioner.
Available pieces of pictorial
and video and other factual evidence associated with Aba IPOB members’
massacre are too strong for Nigerian Army to escape culpability on
account of its infantile or inexcusable excuses above.
The video clips of the
massacre and the Burrow Pit dumping of the 13 murdered IPOB members not
only speak for themselves but also show the depth of involvement of
soldiers of the 144 Battalion of the Nigerian Army under Lt Col Kasim
Umar Sidi. Our round the clock searchlight is particularly beamed on the
13 murdered corpses dumped in the said Burrow Pit.
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