Nigeria News
Baga raid: Satellite images ‘show Nigeria army abuse’ – BBC
Satellite images reveal that 2,275 homes were destroyed during a military raid to hunt down militant Islamists in the northern Nigerian town of Baga last month, a rights group has said.
Human Rights Watch said soldiers “engaged more in destruction than in protection” after Boko Haram fighters attacked a military patrol.
The army has not commented on the latest allegations.
It has said 37 people were killed; others say more than 180 died.
The Islamist Boko Haram group has waged an insurgency to create an Islamic state since 2010.
Correspondents say soldiers have often been accused of using excessive force in its efforts to put down the insurgency.
Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan regarded the conflict in Baga as “most regrettable and unfortunate”, his office said, in a statement on Tuesday.
“He reaffirmed his full commitment to doing all within the powers of the federal government to speedily end the intolerable threats to national security which have necessitated such confrontations,” it said.
‘Duty of protection’
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on the Nigerian authorities to impartially investigate and prosecute soldiers responsible for recent violence in Baga.
It said satellite images it had analysed undermined the military’s assertion that only 30 houses were destroyed during the fighting in Baga, a remote fishing community on the shores of Lake Chad, on 16 and 17 April.
Baga residents told HRW that soldiers ransacked the town after Boko Haram killed a soldier during an attack on a military patrol.
Maina Ma’aji Lawan, a senator for the area, told the BBC Hausa service that more than 4,000 houses had been burnt and more than 200 people had died.
Community leaders told HRW that 2,000 burned homes had been counted and 183 bodies identified after the military raid ended.
Satellite images corroborated this account and had identified 2,275 destroyed buildings with another 125 severely damaged, the US-based rights group said.
“The Nigerian military has a duty to protect itself and the population from Boko Haram attacks, but the evidence indicates that it engaged more in destruction than in protection,” Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
The BBC’s Nigeria correspondent Will Ross says the area is a stronghold of Boko Haram and one eyewitness said prior to the violence that soldiers had accused residents of sheltering the militants.
“I lost everything in my house after soldiers came and set my house ablaze,” Baga resident Ibrahim Modu told the Associated Press news agency.
“They met me outside, walked into my house and put it on fire, after which they told me to leave so that I don’t get burnt by the fire.”
A 27-year-old woman, who stayed in her house after the gunfire erupted, described to HRW how soldiers went door-to-door looking for any men that remained in her neighbourhood.
“I saw the soldiers drag a man out of another house. They started beating him with their guns. They were beating him severely and he was crying,” she is quoted by HRW as saying.
“The man then ran, and I saw the soldiers shoot him. I heard the gunshots and saw him fall. On the other side of the road the soldiers were beating other people.”
Another resident said soldiers threw explosives into houses.
“They would throw [the explosive] and then fire would come out of it. I saw them do this to about 10 houses,” he is quoted as saying.
‘Misinformation’
Mr Jonathan’s office said Nigeria’s Human Rights Commission (HRC) would carry out an independent investigation, and any “misconduct” on the part of the military would be dealt with.
A preliminary investigation by the military high command and the National Emergency Management Authority (Nema) showed that a lot of misinformation was being “peddled” about the situation in Bega, his office said.
Reports that more than 180 people died could not be substantiated, and Nema officials could identify only 32 fresh graves during their visit to the area, the president’s office added.
They also reported that that while some houses and businesses were burnt it was “certainly not up to the number quoted”, it said.
“It is pertinent to note that the houses in question are mostly thatched roof houses that could easily catch fire. It is on record that the terrorists employ the tactics of arson wherever they attack,” Mr Jonathan’s office said.
In the week after the conflict in Baga, the military said 30 militants, one soldier and six civilians died.
Rocket-propelled grenades and bomb-making material had been recovered in the raid, it added.
-BBC
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The Kano State Government on Saturday said it has transferred 1,098 ‘almajiris’ to different states of the country.
The commissioner for local government, Murtala Garo, disclosed this while presenting a report before the state’s task force on COVID-19 at the government house, Kano.
Almajiris are children who are supposed to be learning Islamic studies while living with their Islamic teachers. Majority of them, however, end up begging on the streets of Northern Nigeria. They constitute a large number of Nigeria’s over 10 million out-of-school children.
Mr Garo said the Kano government transported 419 almajiris to Katsina, 524 to Jigawa and 155 to Kaduna. He said all of them tested negative for coronavirus before leaving the Kano State.
Despite the coronavirus test done in Kano for the almajiris, the Jigawa government earlier said it would quarantine for two weeks all the almajiris that recently arrived from Kano.
Mr Garo said another 100 almajiris scheduled to be taken to Bauchi State also tested negative to COVID-19.
In a remark, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje said the COVID-19 situation in Kano was getting worse. He appealed for a collaborative effort to curtail the spread of the virus in the state.
Mr Ganduje, who commended residents for complying with the lockdown imposed in the state, said the decision was taken to halt the spread of the virus.
Kano State, as of Saturday night, has 77 coronavirus cases, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.
The decision to transfer the Kano almajiris is part of the agreement reached between Northern governors that almajiris in each state be transferred to their states of origin.
However, even before the latest agreement by the governors, the Kano government had been transferring almajiris to other states and neighbouring countries after it banned street begging in the state, most populous in Northern Nigeria.
Despite the transfers, however, no concrete step has been taken to ensure such children do not return to Kano streets as there is freedom of movement across Nigeria although interstate travel was recently banned to check the spread of the coronavirus.
Sourced From: Premium Times Nigeria
By Ugochukwu Alaribe
Operatives of the Abia State Vigilante Service, AVS, popularly known as ‘Bakassi Boys’ have arrested 24 market women hidden in a container truck, at Ekwereazu Ngwa, the boundary community between Abia and Akwa Ibom states.
The market women, said to be from Akwa Ibom State, were on their way to Aba, when they were arrested with the truck driver and two of his conductors for violating the lockdown order by the state government.
Driver of the truck, Moses Asuquo, claimed he was going to Aba to purchase stock fish, but decided to assist the market women, because they were stranded.
A vigilante source told Sunday Vanguard that the vehicle was impounded while the market women were sent back to Akwa Ibom State.
Commissioner for Home Land Security, Prince Dan Okoli, who confirmed the incident, said that smuggling of people into the state poses great threat to the state government’s efforts to contain the spread of COVID- 19.
Sourced From: Vanguard News
Operatives of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID), Yaba of the Lagos State police command have arrested one Mrs Nene Steve for allegedly killing her maid, Joy Adole
The maid was allegedly beaten to death by Nene for requesting for her salary at their residence located at 18, Ogundola Street, Bariga area in Lagos.
Narrating the incident, Philips Ejeh, an elder brother to the deceased said that he was sad when they informed him that his sister was beaten to death.
He explained that the deceased was an indigene of Benue State brought to Lagos through an agent and started working with her as a maid in January 2020.
‘’She reported that her boss refused to pay her and anytime she asked for her salary she will start beating her.
She was making an attempt to leave the place but due to the total lockdown she remained there until Sunday when her boss said she caught her stealing noodles and this led to her serious beating and death,’’ Ejeh said.
He called on Lagos State Government and well- meaning people in the country to help them in getting justice for the victim.
The police spokesman, Bala Elkana, stated that the woman and her husband came to Bariga Police Station to a report that their house girl had committed suicide.
Detectives were said to have visited the house and suspected foul play with the position of the rope and bruises all over the body which confirmed that the girl had been tortured to death and the boss decided to hang up the girl to make it look like suicide.
He said: “The police moved on with their investigation and found a lot of sign of violence on her body that she has been tortured before a rope was put on her neck.’’
He added that the police removed the corpse and deposited it in the mortuary for autopsy to further ascertain the cause of the death.
Elkana said the matter has been transferred from Bariga police station to Panti for further investigation while the couple have been arrested and will be charged to court.
Ostensibly alarmed by the latest killings of dozens of soldiers by Boko Haram insurgents, President Muhammadu Buhari has summoned an urgent meeting of Service Chiefs to find ways to stop the trend.
He has also dispatched the Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan Ali, to the neighbouring Republic of Chad for an urgent meeting with President Idris Deby and his defence counterpart.
Knowledgeable sources said in Abuja on Friday that the president is worried by on the deterioration of security situation on the Nigeria – Chad Border that has led to the recently increased Boko Haram terrorism in the area.
The sources which did not want to be named in Abuja said: “Nigeria has a Chad problem in the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) put together to secure the Lake Chad basin areas and repeal the Boko Haram terrorist attacks against all the countries neighbouring the Lake.”
The sources noted that Chad is believed to be having their own internal security challenges and this has reportedly led to their pulling away their own troops manning their own border around Lake Chad, saying: “That lacuna is being exploited by the Boko Haram terrorists, who go in and out of Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon to launch terrorist acts. This is a clear illustration of the fact that terrorism is beyond national borders.”
When contacted, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, confirmed that the Defence Minister is going to Chad but said he is unaware of the purpose.
Meanwhile, the military authorities are said to be in the process of identifying the families of the latest victims with a view to making contact with them.
Credible sources revealed that it is the reason the president is yet to make any pronouncement on the matter.
“The President has called an urgent meeting with the Service Chiefs, as well as the fact that families of the latest victims of the Boko Haram are being identified and contacts made before a government pronouncement on the tragic attacks. This, it is understood, is the reason for the silence of the government over the incident,” the source said.
Sourced From: Tribune
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