The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) has released a report entitled ‘Democracy watch reports’, in which it revealed that security agents killed a total of 13,241 Nigerians extra-judicially since 2011,
Presenting the report in Abuja yesterday, the director of CDD, Ms. Idayat Hassan stated that extrajudicial murders involving Nigerian security operatives became rife since the return to civil rule in 1999.
Unfortunately, she said the perpetrators of the act have not been punished.
“These unlawful killings go largely unpunished, thanks in part to Nigeria’s Force Order 237, which allows officers to use lethal force in ways that contravene international law, and because of government’s corruption and a prevailing culture of impunity.
“Successive governments in Nigeria have used unlawful killings to quell secessionist upheavals and terrorist activities, a practice that was exacerbated during President Muhammadu’s Buhari’s tenure – such as the unlawful killing of 350 Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) members by the Nigerian army in 2015.
“It is pertinent to state that extra-judicial killings conducted by state actors have become the primary cause of death in the country. In fact, state actors have cumulatively killed 13, 241 people since 2011,” she said.
The CDD director noted that over 70 per cent of the prison population was made up of detainees awaiting trial, with over 20 per cent awaiting trial for more than a year.
She also noted an emerging trend of security officers receiving orders from elite in Nigeria to remand detainees for longer period on spurious grounds.
“Compounding the effects of illegal detention is the horrible detention situation in Nigeria that further exacerbates human rights violations. Overcrowding in Nigerian prisons has increased by more than 1000 percent in the last decade,” she added.
Hassan also stated that the government frequently uses ‘preventing terrorist actions’ as an alibi to justify disrupting peaceful protests and social movements.
“Peaceful protests are regularly met with violent attacks by security personnel or even are prevented from protesting in the first place. The excessive use of force in reaction to largely peaceful protests – most recently visible during the #ENDSARS protests – has created a frightening climate that discourages or limits the right to assemble.
“Undaunted, Nigerians protested on Democracy Day in June 2021 but were once again met with the deployment of security forces spraying tear gas and firing live bullets into the air to disperse what they referred to as ‘anti-government’ protests,” she noted.
However, she agreed that successive administration has had its peculiar challenges adding that Nigeria was yet to have a president who does not fight corruption half-heartedly,
“In 22 years, we have seen a deterioration of human rights which is like the basis of democracy itself. Any government can actually provide infrastructure be it military or autocracy or democracy. Democracy is about freedom, civil and political rights. In the last 22 years, we have seen that from one administration to the other there have been flagrant human rights violations, especially extra-judicial killings.
“When you look at all the indexes put together that actually benchmark Nigeria’s performance on civil and political rights, you will find that we deteriorated, especially the last five years,” Hassan added.
