Apo 8: NHRC indicts Army, DSS, for unlawful killing,…Victims to get N10m
By Adetokunbo Fakeye
Nigerian Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in Abuja Monday afternoon indicted the Nigerian Army, the Directorate of State Security, DSS and the Attorney General of the Federation, in the killing of the popular Apo 8.
In an 83-page final report and decision, NHRC indicted the federal security agencies, and said last September 20, an army-DSS detachment stormed an uncompleted building in the Apo/Gudu district of the Federal Capital Territory on a presumed operation to flush out a Boko Haram sleeper cell.
According to the NHRC, the claims by the security agents about the incident remain unfounded. It added that security forces apparently did not put their stories together well when they claimed at the time that over 100 inmates of Boko Haram fighters led by one Suleiman, also known as “R Kelly” were hiding and coordinating an attack on Abuja from the building, and had buried arms at the nearby Gudu cemetery.
“After a 30 minutes military operation at the building, 7 of the inmates were killed, one later died in the hospital, 4 were arrested and later detained, while some of the inmates escaped during the operation and some of the arrested inmates were “expelled” never to return to Abuja”
NHRC in the report said that it investigated the contending claims and based its resolutions on three very questions: Whether security forces applied proportionate force to the alleged threat; Whether those killed were lawfully denied their lives.
The commission slammed the security agencies by declaiming their argument that the victims were Boko Haram combatants.
“There is “no credible evidence” to reach such a conclusion and for that reason, the victims remain in the face of the law, “protected civilians” under the Geneva Convention act that governs the rule of law”.
NHRC submitted that, Security forces acted without proper amount of case in the prevention of death, describing the killings as unlawful violations of right to life of the deceased.
On the proportionality of force, the NHRC said not only did security agents violate the right to life of the victims, even the survivors suffered non-lethal violations of right to life, physical integrity and livelihood.
The report recommended that, the Army, DSS and the Attorney General’s office should pay N10million to each of the deceased family and N5million to the eleven injured youths.
It also recommended that, within two months the affected three agencies should review and harmonise rules of engagement governing the operations of security agencies and bring them into compliance with international standards governing armed conflict.
