A state of emergency declared in Nigeria in areas hit by attacks blamed on Islamist group Boko Haram has sparked concerns that the military would use the measure as legal cover to carry out further abuses.
A military task force in Borno State, Boko Haram’s stronghold, has been accused a number of times in recent months of killing civilians and burning homes after bomb attacks, alleging residents collaborated with the militants.
Soldiers and police have also faced accusations in the past of gunning down civilians and carrying out summary executions in central Plateau State, which has been hit by years of clashes between Christian and Muslim ethnic groups.
Such actions have only worsened the situation and turned residents who might not otherwise support the extremists against the military, some analysts say.
The emergency declaration in parts of four states, including Borno and Plateau, gives security agencies extra powers to search and arrest.
“They’ve already been committing abuses,” said Jibrin Ibrahim of the Center for Democracy and Development think tank in Abuja. “It will just legalize it, in a sense.”
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan declared the state of emergency on Saturday in response to scores of attacks attributed to Boko Haram, particularly bombings on Christmas that killed 49 people, most of them in a gruesome blast at a Catholic church as services were ending.
While Boko Haram has been carrying out increasingly deadly attacks for months, including an August suicide bombing of UN headquarters in Abuja that left 25 dead, the Christmas violence triggered intense fear and outrage.
It also led to warnings from Christian leaders that they would defend themselves if such attacks continued, raising more worries in a country roughly divided between a mainly Muslim north and predominantly Christian south.
Amid mounting frustration over authorities’ failure to stop the -violence, Jonathan announced the measures and declared that Boko Haram would be crushed.
The concern that has been expressed over the military and police is whether they would engage in killings, round-ups and invasions of people’s homes.
“We see it as a blank cheque given to the military to perpetrate all sorts of abuses in the name of bringing an end to the violence,” said Shehu Sani, a northern-based activist and head of the Civil Rights Congress of Nigeria.
“We are of the belief that as a democracy, Nigeria’s government must fight the insurgency within the ambit of the law and respect for fundamental rights of citizens,” he said.
However, there are also questions over what the emergency declaration will mean in practice apart from closing borders in hard-hit areas, which began on Monday.
Military spokesmen did not want to discuss details of the operations, but one said training had occurred to address past abuses.
“We have reviewed and we continue to review our modus operandi as far as this fight against terrorists is concerned,” army spokesman Major General Raphael Isa said.
Nigeria’s military, West Africa’s largest, has a long history of abuses — though it has at the same time gained respect as an important supplier of troops to international peacekeeping missions.
The country has also seen six military coups since independence in 1960, but the emergency decree applies to such a small portion of the vast country that analysts said they did not see any such danger under the current situation.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation and largest oil producer, has been under civilian rule since 1999.
Some people who voiced their support for the emergency declaration also hoped that it would be accompanied by dialogue with the militants.
Tanko Yakasai, a respected veteran northern politician, called the decree a “necessary evil” and said he believed the government would keep the military on a tight leash to keep the situation from spiraling further out of control.
“I believe the government will make sure that the military will handle the situation more professionally, with more care, realizing the implication of misbehaving in this kind of situation,” he said.
Others were not as sure and questioned why an emergency decree was even necessary, with military task forces already operating in a number of violence-hit areas.
Speaking of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, Ibrahim said: “The whole city has been militarized and that did not have an impact on what was going on.”
“I don’t see how the declaration of emergency on its own would have an impact,” he said.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of