I stumbled on a Facebook post by Mallam Nasir El-Rufai of
an article by the BBC titled Nigerian ‘youths executed’ in Boko Haram
stronghold published on November 2, 2012. I looked for the article on
the BBC website and read it with a growing sense of sadness and anger.
This article simply says what a lot of us know to be true – that in the
name of combatting Boko Haram, the Nigerian military has been wantonly
killing Nigerians in the Northern part of the country without anybody
asking questions. It was alleged that the military regularly go around
Maiduguri on house-to-house searches, rounding up men by some criteria
only they know, and taking them to an open field where they might either
be freed or executed. An imam is said to have lost four of his sons
this way.
The article also quotes the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala saying ‘the government would never condone human rights
abuses, but it should be remembered that the army was trying to ‘curb’
terrorism.
‘I think you need to look at the circumstances. When the UK
was battling terrorism… the US, they had Guantanamo Bay…. All
countries, when the security of their citizens is at stake, they try to
use all the tools at their disposal,’ she said.
Thereafter, I went back to the Facebook post to read
comments made by others who had read the post. To say I was
disappointed, does not quite explain my feelings when I realized the
kinds of position different people took on the issue. Most of it left me
feeling almost hopeless for my country. From the names of the people
who commented and the tenor of their comments, you could immediately
infer with some accuracy, what part of the country they come from, and
maybe less accurately, what their religious beliefs are.
Some of the first few comments I saw rained abuses on
El-Rufai for posting the article. That was a bit befuddling, because I
really did not see what he had done wrong by posting an interesting
article for others to read. He is not even the author of the article and
did not offer an opinion about it.
Some of the comments supported the activities of the
military. Others were against them. Some attempted to justify these
extra-judicial killings as necessary. Others accused the military of
trying to exterminate Muslims. Some called all Muslims terrorists.
Others called down the justice of God/Allah on evil doers – terrorists
or military. Finally, some insulted others who had opinions contrary to
theirs. The conspicuous lack of opinions that actually dealt with the
most important issue – extra-judicial killings – raised by the article
was sickening.
I do not need a BBC article to tell me what the Nigerian
police and military are all about. I was born and bred in Port Harcourt
and have lived a huge chunk of my life in that city. In this time, I
have witnessed the mindless and brutal nature of the police and
military.
For as long as I can remember, police stations in Port
Harcourt have been executing suspected armed robbers and some people
caught with weapons without recourse to any judicial process. It is
public knowledge. You hear statements like ‘Police kill thief for Mile 1
Police Station this morning. If you pass there, you go see people
gather dey look.’ Sometimes, the police would say they were killed in a
firefight. We know these to be lies, as there have been stories of
people going to visit relatives of arrested people, going to the police
station only to find their relatives have disappeared and the police
seeming confused as to what happened. They had been executed and buried
in shallow graves at the Port Harcourt Cemetery.
Between 1992 and 1994 there were tensions between the
Okrika and Ogoni people of Rives State, who are neighbours. This led to
violent clashes both in their villages and in Port Harcourt, where they
both groups had significant populations in the many waterfront
communities. They fought and killed and destroyed. The state government
declared a dusk-to-dawn curfew and the military were deployed. Living
not very far away from the entrance to one of the waterfronts I
witnessed first-hand what the Nigerian military idea of keeping the
peace was. Young men were beaten within an inch of their lives for any
perceived infractions. People were asked to crawl on periwinkle shells.
People were hung upside down from their limbs. All of these in full
public view. However, these were the lucky ones. The unlucky ones were
shot. The army was judge, jury and executioner. One would have thought
that the idea of sending in the military was to quell the fighting and
stop the killing. On the contrary, they quelled the fighting but
continued the killing!
In January 1994, because of unrest in Ogoniland due to
Shell and its activities, the government formed the Rivers State
Internal Security Task Force from army, navy, air force, mobile police
and state security personnel, led by Major Paul Okuntimo, to forcibly
bring peace. This Task Force was legendary in its fiendish brutality.
There was a massacre; there was rape and pillaging; there was blood.
This was war by Nigeria against Nigerians. There was a Nigerian media
blackout and the gory details of what happened in Ogoniland would only
become known to the wider public during the Oputa Panel. I remember
listening to the chilling testimony of a masked woman who had been
battered and raped by soldiers.
In November 1999, some military personnel were murdered in
Odi, Bayelsa State. The reaction of the Nigerian government was to send
in the military. Their mission, as far as I understand it, was to
obliterate Odi from the surface of the earth. Tanks and APCs moved in.
Mortars and howitzers were used against the people of Odi – Nigerian
citizens, by the Nigerian military. At the end of the day, about 2500
people lay dead and an unknown number of women raped and beaten. Those
who managed to escape hid in fear in the swamps. As always, there was a
complete Nigerian media blackout of these events. I remember listening
to Voice of America interviews on radio as terrified women were
interviewed by foreign journalists, and tuning to Nigerian radio
stations to hear nothing related to these atrocious events.
I could go on and on, recounting incidents of this kind
that have shown the Nigerian police and military to be barbaric in their
methods, but I would not. Surely, you get the picture by now.
For a government minister to cite Guantanamo as an example
of a necessary counter-terrorism measure, similar to what the military
is doing in Northern Nigeria today is sophistry at its darkest. For
years, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) wreaked havoc on the UK and
Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) did the same in Spain and France. We never
saw the tactics used in Odi or those being used in Maiduguri, Potiskum
and other Northern towns today. However, silly and sometimes dangerous
talk has come to be expected from Nigerian government officials, so it
is no surprise.
The surprise is when educated young people decide to
immerse themselves in tribalism and religious intolerance in the face of
this definitely non-tribal and non-religious issue. People seem totally
blind to the illegal nature of these happenings. These are the same
people who hollered in outrage a few weeks ago when four young men were
murdered in Aluu by a bloodthirsty mob. These people all became legal
experts, telling us how illegal vigilante justice is and calling for
justice. Are the lives of those four young men more important than those
of the men that are dying at the hands of the Nigerian military in
Northern Nigeria? Why do we have just a few isolated voices from the
North talking about what is happening there? The last question is for
Southerners! Is it because deep down inside we blame the North and
Muslims in general for our terrorism problems?
Our recent history shows us that both North and South have
suffered from the heavy-handedness of the Nigerian police and military
at different times, and because of our tacit acceptance of this, it has
continued. If it does not affect us directly or if it is not something
like Aluu, where we can jump on the bandwagon and sound all righteous,
then we do not care. So yesterday it was Ogoniland and Odi and today it
is Potiskum and Maiduguri and others. Where would it be tomorrow? Your
city? Your town? Your neighbourhood? Maybe your house?
A few years ago, some young men (undergraduates like the
Aluu four) were killed by the Police in Port Harcourt and labeled
cultists and gang members, as is wont to happen. However, one of these
young men was the son (the only child) of a prominent doctor. The doctor
made a huge stink and it became news. I am not quite sure how that case
ended. It should be known, as I have mentioned earlier, that such
killings have had the unquestioning acceptance of the public for years.
However, it only became an issue because it affected such a prominent
individual. No matter the outcome, the doctor would never get his son
back. It is finality of this nature that the actions of the police and
military bring with their actions.
It is never too late to take decisive action and I think it
is time we all shed our togas of tribal and religious sentiments that
cloud our reasoning and with one voice begin to say ‘enough is enough’.
Time has come to stop trading insults with each other and unite. We need
to start making that big push to stop our government and security
agencies from visiting barbaric and illegal punishments on innocent
Nigerians. If we do not do this, then as sure as there is a sun in the
sky, police and military brutality is coming our way. Just as Potiskum
could not have imagined today’s situation when Odi was happening, so can
you not imagine what will come your way.
Mike Ekunno, in his article in The Guardian of November 1,
2012 titled Injustice: The Rich Also Cry, said ‘Let us not ask for whom
the funeral bell tolls; it tolls for us, Nigeria’s living dead.’ That
says it all.
DailyPost
