{"id":2683,"date":"2013-04-25T14:45:07","date_gmt":"2013-04-25T14:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/disnaija.com\/nigeria-news\/baga-massacre-acn-holds-jonathan-culpable-alerts-icc\/"},"modified":"2013-04-25T14:45:07","modified_gmt":"2013-04-25T14:45:07","slug":"baga-massacre-acn-holds-jonathan-culpable-alerts-icc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/disnaija.com\/baga-massacre-acn-holds-jonathan-culpable-alerts-icc\/","title":{"rendered":"Baga Massacre: ACN holds Jonathan culpable, alerts ICC"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n
The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has said the killing of 185 people, mostly women and children, in Baga, Borno State, may constitute crimes against humanity which should attract the attention of the International Criminal Court (ICC), especially because the Nigerian government is either unwilling or unable to prosecute those involved, going by precedence.<\/p>\n
In a statement issued in Lagos on Thursday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said far beyond the justifiable call for a judicial commission of inquiry into the Baga massacre, it is time for leaders under whose watch these killings are being perpetrated, to be held to account.<\/p>\n
It said the killings in Baga, like previous ones in the areas where Boko Haram and the military Joint Task Force (JTF) have been engaged in clashes, are undoubtedly a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population – the definition of crimes against humanity which is one of the four groups of crimes under the jurisdiction of the ICC.<\/p>\n
According to the ACN, those engaged in the killings, including the Boko Haram sect, cannot and must not get away with these heinous crimes.<\/p>\n
The party said the only reasons that the killing and maiming of innocent citizens have continued unabated in Nigeria is because such killings in the past, either in Odi in Bayelsa State or in Zaki-Biam in Benue State under the watch of then President Olusegun Obasanjo, went unpunished.<\/p>\n
”Enough is enough! Even in countries at war, innocent citizens are not being daily mowed to death either by insurgents or state forces, as we are experiencing in Nigeria. It is clear that the Nigerian government is either unwilling or unable to prosecute these crimes, despite the deceptive assurances by those at the helm, hence the ICC must immediately beam its search-light on the situation in Nigeria.<\/p>\n
”While we are aware that the killings in Odi and Zaki Biam occurred before 1 July 2002, when the Rome Statute setting up the ICC came into force, the killings in the north, especially at Baga, fall within the temporal jurisdiction of the global court,” it said.<\/p>\n