Too often, local military operations have ended in preventable pain and death. This defeats the purpose of task force operations. The callous killing of Joseph Izu, a player of Shooting Stars Sports Club of Ibadan, in Okaki, Ahoada, Rivers State, in October, bears the imprints of the military. Izu was reportedly murdered in cold blood by soldiers from the Joint Military Task Force, despite his plea that he was not the suspected criminal they were looking for. The Nigerian military are notorious for brutality and extrajudicial killings, which is why Izu’s case deserves a special investigation to unravel the whole truth.
It is benumbing and cruel that a young man who was home on holiday was cut down in his prime by undisciplined soldiers for no just cause. The player left behind a wife, a daughter and an aged father. They are inconsolable, drenched in tears amidst a pall of the Army’s obnoxious cockiness.
This is not the first time reckless JTF operatives would kill a defenceless citizen and escape justice. If the Izu case follows that familiar trajectory, the impunity might continue. “He (Izu) went to the jetty area where we usually swim…” his father, Rueben, recalls. “It was while he was there that the men of the JTF raided the place… When the soldiers saw them running, they began shooting sporadically and one of the bullets hit Joseph in the leg. As he was groaning in pain, one of the soldiers walked up to him and shot him a second time, point blank, despite Joseph’s plea that he was a footballer….” By law, even crime suspects cannot be subjected to summary execution.
In line with its long-held code of arrogance, the Nigerian Army authorities came out swiftly to defend their officers. Hamisu Hassan, Brigadier-General and Commander, 2 Brigade, Port Harcourt, Rivers State, said troops who were on a “confidence building patrol” encountered suspected gangsters at an isolated shrine, where they killed Izu. This is not a convincing line of argument to warrant the killing of an innocent person. Security agencies apply reasonable force only when a person is resisting arrest or attacks officers. Izu did none of these. He was reportedly pleading and had shown his identity card to the soldiers before being murdered.
Is the military incapable of conducting operations without killing the innocent? Weighty evidence abounds of their indulgence in vicious acts in their campaign against Boko Haram in the North-East region. Last week, a military court sentenced Umar Sule, a staff sergeant, to three years’ imprisonment for his cold-hearted assault on a 10-year-old boy in Maiduguri, Borno State. Sule had accused the boy of stealing his N2,000. Instead of handing him over to the police, he tied his hands and tortured him, leading to the amputation of one hand. The other hand is not functioning.
Military operations in the Niger Delta region are often replete with horrible human rights abuses. In May, Army personnel reportedly flogged and trampled upon elderly women in Ovre-Eku, Delta State, who were protesting against an oil company for taking over their land. The Army justified the action with the untenable claim that the women were trying to disarm uniformed men. Earlier this year, the military had invaded Gbaramatu, Delta State, in their search for militants. They locked down several communities and forced many families to flee.
The military’s bad-tempered relationship with the civilian populace suggests it is an institution desperately in need of an urgent redemption. In 2015, soldiers went on the rampage on Ikorodu Road, Lagos, vandalising vehicles and brutalising pedestrians after an accidental death of their colleague. They burnt down several BRT buses. In 2006, they burnt down the Area C Command police headquarters in Surulere, Lagos, over a minor disagreement between a policeman and a soldier. In a 2008 case that offended the sensibility of Nigerians, six Naval ratings attached to Harry Arogundade, a rear admiral, assaulted and stripped a lady, Uzoma Okere, over a traffic row in Lagos. Another Nigerian Navy officer, Felix Odunlami, shot a commercial motorcyclist to death after the latter hit his vehicle at a traffic light stop in Ikeja, Lagos, in 2005.
Complaints against the Army have soared. Not a few international organsisations, especially the Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the United States Department of State annual Country Report on Human Rights Practices have been passing damning verdicts on our military’s human rights records. The Nigerian military have no excuse for these abuses and atrocities. When the military misbehave in other civilised societies, those concerned are dealt with in accordance with the law. Rascally soldiers have operated with impunity, partly because of the military high command’s cavalier response to such atrocities and sloppy investigations of cases when they are carried out. That partly reflects the glacial pace of justice in the country.
But sweeping military brazen abuse of citizens’ rights under the carpet will ultimately be counter-productive. To infuse sanity into their operations, the Nigerian military authorities must admit their failings. No matter the pressure, soldiers should protect Nigerians, not kill them. We reject the hasty investigation, which cleared the personnel that killed Izu, and advocate a thorough re-investigation into the case so as to bring his killers to justice. For us to have a disciplined military, justice for Izu should be the standard template in all such provocative cases in future.
