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Military of Nigeria attempting to cover up mass killing of civilians

The Nigerian authorities must promptly, thoroughly, independently, impartially, transparently and effectively investigate the killing of more than 120 civilians in two military air strikes on Sunday, instead of engaging in attempts to cover up the crime, said Amnesty International Nigeria.

At around 10pm on 3 December, the Nigerian military launched an air strike on a religious gathering at Tudun Biri – a village near Kaduna northern Nigeria. A second air strike was launched around 30 minutes later, killing dozens, including those who rushed to the scene to rescue victims of the initial strike.

The Nigerian military has since put out two contradictory explanations. An initial statement by the Nigerian army in Kaduna said the air strike was a mistake. This was followed by a statement from Nigeria’s Defence Headquarters claiming that suspected bandits had embedded with civilians.

The victims were buried in two mass graves on 4 December 2023.

“The Nigerian military’s recklessness is a result of the authorities’ consistent failure to hold them to account for a long list of such atrocities. These unlawful killings of civilians cannot be swept under the carpet,” said Isa Sanusi Director Amnesty International Nigeria.

“The President Bola Tinubu administration must promptly set up an independent inquiry into Tudun Biri village air strike and, where these investigations indicate criminal responsibility, ensure that those suspected to be responsible are brought to justice in fair trials. Victims and their families must be provided with access to justice and effective remedies.”

Amnesty International found that 77 people were buried in one of the two mass graves and over 17 people from nearby village who attended the religious ceremony were also buried. Dozens severely injured are currently receiving treatment at Kaduna’s main hospital.

“The contradictory explanations offered by the Nigerian military so far show their complete disregard for civilian lives and suggest attempts by the authorities to cover-up these grave human rights violations. Air strikes with deadly consequences for civilians are becoming routine. This is completely unacceptable,” said Isa Sanusi

On 18 December 2022 an air strike by the Nigerian Air Force killed 64 people in Mutumji village in Zamfara state. On 24 January 2023 a military air strike killed more than 40 herders in Doma region of Nasarawa state. And, in January 2023, dozens of vigilantes were killed by a military air strike in Galadima Kogo in Niger state, central Nigeria.

The Nigerian military has consistently failed to thoroughly, independently, impartially, transparently and effectively investigate these incidents.

“The Nigerian authorities’ persistent failure to hold the military to account is encouraging impunity and increasingly endangering the lives of the civilians the military is supposed to be protecting. The result is that the military is routinely carrying out air strikes that end up killing civilians,” said Isa Sanusi

This is the deadliest air strike since the 2017 air strike on Rann village which killed 115 civilians.

Amnesty International

Related story: Accidental Military drone strikes kill dozens in Nigeria

Accidental Military drone strikes kill dozens in Nigeria

At least 85 civilians were killed when an army drone attack erroneously targeted a religious gathering in northwest Nigeria, officials confirmed Tuesday, as the president ordered an investigation into the latest in a series of such deadly mistakes in Nigeria’s conflict zones.

The strike took place Sunday night in Kaduna state’s Tudun Biri village while residents observed the Muslim holiday marking the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad, government officials said. The military believed it was “targeting terrorists and bandits,” officials said.

At least 66 people also were injured in the attack, the National Emergency Management Agency said in a statement. Eighty-five bodies, including of children, women and the elderly, have been buried so far, as a search continues for any additional victims, the agency said.

Nigeria’s army chief, Lt. Gen. Taoreed Lagbaja, apologized for the drone strike during a visit to the village Tuesday and said it had been carried out “based on the observation of some tactics usually employed by bandits.”

“Unfortunately, the reports we got revealed it was innocent civilians that the drone conducted a strike on,” Lagbaja said.

Since 2017, some 400 civilians have been killed by airstrikes that the military said were targeting armed groups in the deadly security crisis in the country’s north, according to the Lagos-based SBM Intelligence security firm.

“The incidence of miscalculated airstrikes is assuming a worrisome dimension in the country,” said Atiku Abubakar, Nigeria’s former vice-president and the main opposition presidential candidate in this year’s election.

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu ordered “a thorough and full-fledged investigation into the incident.” However, such investigations and their outcomes are often shrouded in secrecy.

Nigeria’s military often conducts air raids as it fights the extremist violence and rebel attacks that have destabilized Nigeria’s north for more than a decade, often leaving civilian casualties in its wake, including in January when dozens were killed in Nasarawa state and in December 2022 when dozens also died in Zamfara state.

Maj. Gen. Edward Buba, a spokesman for Nigeria’s Defense Headquarters, said in a statement Tuesday that terror suspects often “deliberately embed themselves within civilian population centers,” though he wasn’t speaking specifically about Sunday’s holiday gathering.

Analysts have in the past raised concerns about the lack of collaboration among Nigerian security agencies as well as the absence of due diligence in some of their special operations in conflict zones.

One major concern has been the proliferation of drones within Nigerian security agencies such that “there is no guiding principle one when these can be used,” according to Kabir Adamu, the founder of Beacon Consulting, a security firm based in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja.

“The military sees itself as a little bit over and above civilian accountability as it were,” Adamu said.

In the incident in Nasarawa in January, when 39 people were killed, the Nigerian air force “provided little information and no justice” over the incident, Human Rights Watch said.

Such incidents are enabled by a lack of punishment for erring officers or agencies, according to Isa Sanusi, Amnesty International’s director in Nigeria.

“The Nigerian military is taking lightly the lack of consequences ... and the civilians they are supposed to protect are the ones paying the price of their incompetence and lack of due diligence,” Sanusi told The Associated Press.

By Chinedu Asadu, AP

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Woman jailed in Nigeria for ‘blasphemy’ for 18 months over WhatsApp message

For sharing a message among her co-workers that criticised a mob action last May, Rhoda Ya’u Jatau has spent the last year in police detention on charges of blasphemy towards Islam.

The healthcare administrator with the Warji local government in Bauchi, northeastern Nigeria was arrested a few days after forwarding the video condemning the burning to death of Deborah Yakubu, a university student in Sokoto, another state, over alleged blasphemy.

Prosecutors allege that by sharing the video, Jatau, then 45, committed multiple offences of inciting disturbance, contempt” for religious creed, and cyberstalking.

Last Monday, a Bauchi state high court rejected her “no-case submission”. Kola Alapinni, lead counsel at Abuja-based nonprofit Foundation for Religious Freedom who is familiar with the case, told Al Jazeera that the defence team is expected to make a case when the court sits again in December.

If found guilty, Jatau, a mother of five and Christian, could be sentenced to a few years in prison, he said.

The court’s decision has sparked public outrage in parts of Nigeria, a country with a history of religious extremism.

“This really shows how far extremism has permeated deeply into our institutions,” said Ndi Kato, politician and executive director of Dinidari, an advocacy group for women’s rights in the Middle Belt region, as central Nigeria is often referred to. “You will lock a person for just forwarding a message because you don’t think that it favours what you believe in? I don’t think that has any place in our society today.”
 

‘Highly restricted’

Half of Nigerians are Muslims and a slightly smaller proportion – 45 percent – of their compatriots are Christians but Nigeria is officially a secular country whose constitution allows for freedom of speech and religious association. For decades, religious tensions have found their way into many facets of life in what is also an ethnically diverse country. This is most pronounced in northern Nigeria where many states have adopted variations of the conservative Islamic law since the country’s return to democracy in 1999.

Before and after the law, dissenting beliefs and opinions or actions deemed to be blasphemy have routinely sparked riots, mob action, or jail sentences in the region. Across the north, judgements critics of Islamic law consider harsh, including death by stoning, have been handed out repeatedly.

This has also been the case in Bauchi, one of Nigeria’s 36 states, which is wedged between the predominantly Christian Middle Belt and the mostly Muslim northeast. The state adopted Islamic law in 2001.

Nigeria is one of the 12 countries in the world that still criminalises blasphemy and one of the seven where it is punishable by death, according to Alapinni.

Isa Sanusi, country director for Amnesty International in Nigeria, said blasphemy or accusations of blasphemy are now a tool for gross human rights violations or even for “settling personal scores”.

“Repeatedly, Nigerian authorities failed to uphold and protect human rights by making sure that people are not either killed or attacked for expressing their opinions,” he told Al Jazeera.

Wakili Mathew Laslimbo, the general secretary of the Christian Association of Nigeria in Bauchi, said the minority Christian community in the state is unhappy about Jatau’s arrest. He told Al Jazeera that the association had tried everything possible to help, including trying to meet the state governor, to no avail.

“The arrest prove[s] to us that the freedom of speech and religion is highly restricted … the church continues to pray for her during gatherings,” her pastor Rev Ishaku Dano Ayuba told Al Jazeera.

The Bauchi state government did not respond to a request for comments. Temitope Ajayi, a presidential spokesperson, told Al Jazeera that the federal government had no knowledge of the case.
 

A pattern of extremism

There have also been other high-profile cases of blasphemy in recent years.

Mubarak Bala, an atheist and president of the Humanist Association of Nigeria who was arrested on the allegation of a blasphemous post on his Facebook account, has been in detention since 2020. Similarly, Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, a Sufi (Islamic) gospel artist, was sentenced to death on the charge of sharing blasphemous song lyrics on WhatsApp. The case is still in court.

Amnesty International has called for their immediate and unconditional release, as well as protection of their rights afterwards.

“Nigerian authorities must wake up to their national and international legal obligations to protect and promote human rights, including the right to freedom of religion,” Amnesty director Sanusi said.

In August, the United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief released a statement on the issue.

“We express concern over the criminalisation of blasphemy in Nigeria contrary to international human rights law and standards and the rising episodes of violence relating to accusations of blasphemy targeting religious minorities in Nigeria,” it said.

According to Sanusi, the latest case underscores the need for justice through a fair trial of all people suspected of responsibility for mob violence to deter would-be perpetrators.

After Yakubu’s lynching in Sokoto, the arrested perpetrators were let off the hook due to the negligence of the prosecution who refused to show up at the court hearing. In contrast, since Jatau was arrested by the police, she has been denied bail and her family has been in hiding for fear of violence against them.

Jatau’s ongoing ordeal, Dindari’s Kato said, is part of a pattern that signals that women in the north and Nigeria as a country are not safe.

“A person who was complaining about this injustice is the person that is going to jail,” she said. “Extremism takes out women and it is just disheartening. This means that women are not safe and we need to speak.”

Last August, the sultan of Sokoto, considered the leader of all Muslims in Nigeria, told new recruits in the one-year mandatory national youth service programme that Islamic law would not apply to non-Muslims among them.

Alapinni agrees, pointing out that Nigeria’s Court of Appeal had indeed ruled in two earlier cases that Islamic law is limited to Islamic personal law which includes succession, inheritance, and marriage.

“There is no room under the constitution for Sharia criminal law,” he said. “The sultan [of Sokoto] is right when he says the Sharia law is not supposed to affect non-Muslims. In fact, the Sharia criminal law should not have been promulgated in the first place … [it] has no place … in a country multicultural, diverse and multireligious like Nigeria,” he said.

By Pelumi Salako, Al Jazeera

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