{"id":2713,"date":"2013-04-26T05:41:01","date_gmt":"2013-04-26T05:41:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/disnaija.com\/nigeria-news\/baga-killings-jonathan-should-face-international-criminal-court-acn\/"},"modified":"2013-04-26T05:41:01","modified_gmt":"2013-04-26T05:41:01","slug":"baga-killings-jonathan-should-face-international-criminal-court-acn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/disnaija.com\/baga-killings-jonathan-should-face-international-criminal-court-acn\/","title":{"rendered":"Baga killings: Jonathan should face International Criminal Court \u2013 ACN"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Following last Friday killing in Baga of 185 people, majority of who were women and children, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has described the attacks on the civilian population as crimes against humanity, which it said should attract the attention of the International Criminal Court (ICC).<\/p>\n

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According to the party, the intervention of the ICC became necessary because the Federal Government has not demonstrated enough willingness to bring the masterminds of the killings to book.<\/p>\n

It said the killings in the North, especially the latest at Baga, fall within the temporal jurisdiction of the global court.<\/p>\n

In a statement issued in Lagos by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said far beyond the justifiable call for a judicial commission of inquiry into the massacre, the time has come to hold to account the leaders under whose watch these killings are being perpetrated.<\/p>\n

The statement reads: \u201cThe 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 \u2013 the definition of crimes against humanity, which is one of the four groups of crimes under the jurisdiction of the ICC.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose engaged in the killings, including the Boko Haram sect, cannot and must not get away with these heinous crimes. 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, Bayelsa State, or in Zaki-Biam, Benue State, under the watch of the then President Olusegun Obasanjo, went unpunished.<\/p>\n

\u2018\u2019Enough 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

\u2018\u2019While we are aware that the killings in Odi and Zaki Biam occurred before July 1, 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

The party blamed the Baga killings on President Goodluck Jonathan, who it accused of failing to distinguish between support for security agencies battling the insurgents in the North and the incitement of the same forces against civilians who are caught in the crossfire.<\/p>\n

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Posted in Nigeria News. <\/a>A DisNaija.Com<\/a> network.<\/p>\n

Source: African Spotlight<\/p>\n

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