Genocide in Nigeria: Boko Haram Death Toll 100,000 – 1,000,000
Peregrino Brimah
The real estimate of Nigerians killed since the onset of the Boko Haram crises in 2011 is over one hundred thousand; and the figure is conservative. Most media report 15,000 deaths. Nigerian Government media [Vanguard] still keeps the figure at 5,000. 15,000 is the number ENDS publicized in March of this year which we then obtained from the CFR website. The media, both local and global has irresponsibly or mischievously in some cases, failed to update and figure out their own numbers ever since.
The world is used to underreporting its genocides; this is because formally recognizing a genocide creates a wider distribution of culpability; not only do the world leading bodies become culpable for permitting such genocide happen under their watch; but so also we the individual feel more guilty for not yelling loud enough while a genocide happened in our domain or to our witness. The Darfur genocide was underreported consistently. The European slave-deportation Holocaust of Africa is still underreported. Many insist that the Biafra genocide and its precipitant pogroms were grossly underreported. It is the way of politics and policy, local and global.
The Numbers And Why America Refuses To Sell Sophisticated Weapons To Nigeria
So the Nigerian government complains that the United States is hindering its war efforts. Though this is just as we all know, a shameless administration used to pushing its helpless irresponsibility in tackling Boko Haram crises on any available ‘other;’ first it was on opponents, now it is on the US; but there is something to consider here. Why does the US limit sale of weaponry to Jonathan and his army Chiefs, some of whom have been accused of being Boko Haram sponsors? The reasons are not far from why some prominent northerners first rejected a declaration of a State of Emergency and why some said Jonathan’s war on Boko Haram as conducted, was a systematic war against the north. The Jonathan government is massacring northern youth, either in combat or as arrested terrorists in thousands! We cannot toss the loads of pictures we have seen and amnesty reports all under the carpet.
Note 1: The pretense of not being able to buy arms from America should quickly be discarded because there are loads of alternative ways to purchases needed arms. Boko Haram after all gets arms! The Government friend, Tompolo, a private individual is being funded by the very government to purchase armed massive battle ships and he does so with ease, to the disappointment of Norwegian lawmakers, so, so much for our very dangerous Jonathan’s crap load of tales.
Lord knows how many more ships the government has funded Ekpemupolo Tompolo to buy which we do not yet know of… as this case of seven only came to light due to Norwegian legislative eruptions. A war looms.
Note 2: The United States itself though justified for refusing to sell un-needed arms to the clueless current Nigerian administration, lacks credibility itself as it too approaches crises like ISIS and other terror situations without sensible plan and rapid, deliberate action and in so-doing, also allows undue thousands to be recruited and killed in similar cycles of death as practiced by Jonathan. Drone strikes, the Obama doctrine, are equivalent war crimes and misuse of military hardware, killing just as many innocent lives as Nigeria is accused of.
The Jonathan Cycle Of Death Waves
Yes, Nigeria needs a harsh approach to terror, but once the approach lacks consistency, rapidity and follow-through, it becomes a systematic system of largely unreported genocide. The Jonathan administration in its conduct of the war against Boko Haram operates a hit and wait system. It fights off and kills some advancing terrorists then openly or secretly ceases fire to allow the terrorists recruit/forcefully conscript thousands more youth from the afflicted north. In conduct of the war, this administration allows the continuous loss of and transfer of ammunition to the terrorists to be given to the newly recruited youth soldiers who “Shekau” the Boko Haram Emir sends off to be sacrificed without regard. Who is counting the numbers of Boko Haram dead? I noticed the United States is! I once again visited the CFR website. The total reported deaths in Nigeria (Nigeria Security Tracker) were 25,000 [Note: only from numbers reported in the Press]; but I noticed something more peculiar— ‘State Actor’. The United States as far as Nigeria goes, pays attention to the deaths by State Actor. And this column was rising to become the highest. ‘State Actor” occurred as a stand-alone and also as a combined number where Boko Haram terrorist killed and government killed figures overlapped/were inseparable. If we spilt the combined column by two just for conversation estimates and add to the stand-alone “State Actor” column that is about 12,000 who have been killed by the Nigerian military.
It is important to mention that in this article, we are in no way presenting that the Nigerian army should not kill Boko Haram terrorists, however I am presenting that as long as the government is not honest and has no tactic or strategy, it must be disallowed from continuing to head the war and sacked because an irresponsible government; Defense Minister, National Security adviser and Army Chief combo, in being allowed to continue defining the approach and lack of it to terror is an act of terror on the people of Nigeria, I dare say, tolerated by the people of Nigeria, most especially its Senators and Traditional representatives who refuse to sack and force the termination of such administration.
We have had estimates of the total numbers of Boko Haram terrorists. When they were all holed up in Sambisa, perhaps they were a bit over 5,000. We have killed several thousand and we have over 10,000 left. Agreed enough of them are from neighboring francophone nations like Chad, as we have come to recognize the regional contributions to the war, but many of these new numbers that keeps growing are our children—our sons being recruited and trained as new soldiers in hundreds or thousands every day in captured Boko Haram territory.
The Jonathan government permitted this growth from 2011 to 2013 when the President was noted to have refused to send the army to crush the camps, using the words, “I will not send the army to crush Boko Haram, they are my siblings and family.” This was when Boko Haram first safely trained thousands of our northern youth. We recollect that during these periods, the terrorists used to raid villages and cart away the able youth; they also used to set-up road blocks for hours, to sack transport buses and capture all the travelling youth who it forced an knife point in camps to either agree to fight for it or be killed. And then in mid 2013, the government declared the State of Emergency, killed many, and then suddenly stopped when it could have finished off the terrorists. The JTF was disbanded and the terrorists were allowed to grow and assisted to receive supplies even with military helicopters, in Sambisa till they regrouped enough and came out ro occupy over 12 local governments they now hold in “Bokoistan,” and from which they are again recruiting and training thousands if not hundreds of thousands of our children.
Boko Haram now governs an area of over 20,000 square kilometers and over between 1 million and 2 million people. From this area, Boko Haram has not only the Chibok girls but thousands of our daughters to do whatever they want with. From these helpless citizen slaves, Boko Harm can and is recruiting thousands at a time for the military to slaughter when they are thrown out as sacrificial soldiers. A report highlighted that since the recapture of Damboa in September, the Nigerian military under Defense Chief Alex Badeh, has not attempted to recapture a single territory from Boko Haram in Borno… well except the globally known Chibok were for once the military assisted by hunter warriors quickly did recapture it for Jonathan not to look worst.
Citizens of Bama for instance have been begging to be allowed to go recapture their town as they hear of untold suffering and their family members being killed and recruited in the town; but the Nigerian government refuses to go and refuses to support the people, to defend themselves as it supports terrorists like Tompolo who actually is perpetrating insecurity in the Niger Delta, now reporting the highest levels of oil looting in history. Bama is home to over 400,000 Nigerians. One can imagine the implication of this.
The Remaining Figures of Our Thousands of Dead
From Bama as being discussed, the Bama people count from September to October this year since the town was captured stood at 4,333 in records at Tashama Bama in Maiduguri, compiled by escapees. [http://ends.ng/?p=1556] We have not yet checked numbers for November. Similar counts of dead are coming from all other occupied local governments in the north. These numbers in thousands per week are not reported in the Nigerian Press because of course, there is no access to “Bokoistan,” the Boko Haram occupied territories. Well over the hundred thousand estimate above may have been massacred in these areas in our media blind spot.
Nigerians and Terrorists Dying in Cameroon: The Voice of America today reports that about 600 Boko Haram terrorists just raided villages in north Cameroon, crossing through Lake Chad. This was a second raid in the past days and another in a recent series. Hundreds of them were killed in this recent attack with many drowned as they attempted to return over the lake. When added to over 1300 killed in recent raids in the last two months, we see other numbers of thousands of Boko Haram terrorists being sacrificed by Shekau and killed by foreign military forces.
Other thousands of Nigerians are dying from injury, hunger and other related hardships as the war rages on uncontrollably under this government. We even have the displaced from Gwoza, being killed in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital by army men for seeking shelter in the capital. [See: http://allafrica.com/stories/201410201948.html] No one counts the numbers who die injured in the bushes, the numbers that die later in or out of unavailable hospitals, the numbers of infants that die from having been orphaned…
The Jonathan government in July this year, raised 60 billion naira from the Dangotes, Ovias, Danjumas, Elumelus and the likes, the “Victim Support Fund” purportedly for rehabilitating the plagued northeast. [See: http://www.premiumtimesng.com] Only the Lord knows where that money is.
Our researchers have alerted that greater than the direct effects of Boko Haram is the rate of deaths from famine and the projected deaths as farmers could not farm this season and from thousands of cattle being plundered across the nation’s north under the watch of the current leadership.
The true numbers may be staggering. Perhaps 200,000, perhaps a million have dies and been killed since this war began after the Abuja bombing of October 1st 2010 when the new Boko Haram 2.0 was invented. Nigerians will never know the true extent of this genocide. As far as we are concerned, one is as bad as all, and it takes for just one individual who should otherwise have been protected by us the people and by the government; to be killed for us to declare genocide.
It is passed time for Nigerians to demand (though our State representatives, Emirs, and other Traditional seat occupiers) the retirement of those at the head of our army, defense department and government for treachery and failure to execute this war to minimal required standards. The United States, the UN, the UK, Russia, Iran, China and other international players must be called on to recognize the genocide, first of all and to sanction those responsible for it at all levels.
This genocide must be addressed.