The Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen Tukur Buratai and the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr. Solomon
Arase, have been told to prepare to answer for all the atrocities
committed against innocent and defenseless citizens of Nigeria.
A human rights and pro-democracy group, the International Society for
Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety), in a statement made
available to newsmen in Onitsha, Anambra State insisted that both
security chiefs of President Muhammadu
Buhari’s administration must account locally and internationally for ‘regime atrocities’, they committed while in service.
In the statement signed by the Chairman, Board of Trustees (BOT) of
Intersociety, Nze Emeka Umeagbalasi, the Nigerian Army and the Nigerian
Police under the command of Buratai and Arase respectively, had recorded
worst human rights abuses in the country so far.
Alleging that over 1,000 state murders have been committed by the
Nigerian Army and the Police, through policy statements, conduct and
orders, the group said the two top security chiefs “incompetently failed
to secure the lives of these murdered Nigerians.
“They conducted and still conduct themselves as outlaws and
incorrigible; forgetting that ‘power is transient’ and nothing last
forever as well as the fact that there is always tomorrow to fall on and
yesterday to fall back on.”
The group said that inspite of the constructive warning of the duo over
the gross implication of their involvement in the dastardly killings of
innocent citizens in peace time and future consequences of their
atrocities, they would not only boast and justify their atrocious acts
but threaten to kill more innocent members of Indigenous People of
Biafra, (IPOB) and the Shiite Muslim members. Umeagbalasi reeled the
alleged killings of 705 Shiite members in Zaria on 12 and 13 December,
2015, 13 members of IPOB in Onitsha on December 17, 2015 and another 22
IPOB members in Aba, Abia State on February 9, 2016.
“There were also other senseless killings by soldiers in Rivers State
and war like bombings and massacre of villages in parts of the Niger
Delta for the purpose of oil colonization and under the guise of
‘fighting sea pirates among others”, the group alleged.
The human right body recalled that the Federal Government is still
paying billions of naira compensation from the verdicts of International
Criminal Court in the Hague for the former President Olusegun
Obasanjo’s atrocities in Odi and Zakibiam in 2000.
They warned that
Obasanjo and his cohorts may be moving freely today because the current
ICC status on the United Nations special crime court has not come into
force by that time but Burutai and Arase may not enjoy the same freedom
because there are now new international laws such as ICC and UN special
crime court as well as some European courts with international
jurisdiction now in operation.
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