Nigeria v. AI: Consequences Of Ignoring Credible Reports On Rights Abuses & Violations In Nigeria …Intersociety

(Chima Ubani Center: Onitsha Nigeria,
19^th December 2018)-Combination of
Government insincerity and dishonesty, falsehood and propaganda,
ethnic chauvinism and religious extremism, tribalism and nepotism,
militarization and failed intelligence, incorrigibility and
entrenched impunity and intolerance and censorship are the
fundamental drawbacks inherent in the central Administration of
Retired Major Gen Muhammadu Buhari and Prof Yemi Osinbajo. They
have also characterized the conducts of the country’s security
forces including counter insurgency operations in the
Northeast.

By Government insincerity and dishonesty, the conducts and
activities of the Buhari Administration and its security forces are
continuously mystified or shrouded in secrecy and falsehood. The
composition of the country’s security establishments and their
administrative management are also ethno-religiously skewed or
lopsided. Divisiveness and disharmony have further taken the centre
stage in the midwifery of Nigeria’s security forces and got
promoted with high frequency.

The country is also over militarized or can best be described as
“meta-diarchy” system of government. It is a settled opinion in the
field of modern securitization and military science that “violence
begets violence” and that state actor militarization also leads to
increase in the non state militancy or militarized response or
reprisal radicalism. The present central Government in Nigeria is
further characterized by entrenched culture of intolerance,
censorship, incorrigibility and impunity and has led the way as its
major policy direction.

Consequently, Nigeria as a country can never find itself back on
the right track or path unless these fundamental drawbacks are
comprehensively and sincerely redressed. This is more so when the
present central Government is  peopled by a ruling cabal
which does not wish the country and its people well but runs the
country as “criminal and business enterprise” or as “a lucrative
venture”; a sort of “Hobbesian Society”  where might
rules and rises in perpetual and arbitrary judgment against the
Society.

Intersociety is, therefore, not surprised
at recent barrage of attacks launched by the Buhari Administration
against Amnesty Int’l particularly the
Administration and its military’s calls few days ago for closure of
“all the offices of Amnesty Int’l in
Nigeria”. The calls are nothing short of height of intolerance and
abuse of power and office. The Government having compromised the
National Human Rights Commission and the mainstream human rights
activists and organizations in the country; is hash and
antagonistic of AI reports because of
its several failed attempts to stifle its credible activities in
the country particularly its reports on Nigeria. Somehow, the same
Government appeared succeeded in the case
of HRW, but has failed woefully to
cage AI.

The Government’s barrage of attacks
on AI is saddening and shocking. This is
because the Organization is somehow soft on the Government of
Nigeria including the AI’s adoption of
Government’s censored term of “Herders-Farmers’ clashes” in its
latest report even where evidence clearly indicates the
contrary. AI has further maintained a
policy of “fair hearing” by availing draft copies of its planned
reports to the concerned Government’s security establishments and
other bodies; weeks or months before their final publications. Such
draft copies are sent to them weeks or months ahead for inputs or
responses to allegations leveled against them; only for the same
Government or its security body to turn around and use them
adversely including launching of verbal and media attacks.

It must be clearly stated that whether in in-service or
out-service military  and other security
conducts or in act of war including counter-insurgency operations
or non war military and other security conducts or activities; such
conducts and activities are at all times strictly guided by sets of
local, regional and international written rules.

In time of war, for instance, military conducts are governed by
the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the ICC Statute of 1998;
likewise in non war military and police conducts which are strictly
governed by the laws of Nigeria including the 1999 Constitution and
regional and international human rights and humanitarian laws as
well as plethora of ethical codes. These laws not only have binding
effects on Nigeria and its leaders but also derogations associated
with them are criminally punishable. It must also be emphasized
that in the conduct of modern warfare, “all is not fair or free”
and every conduct is strictly regulated and punishable if
associated with any form of derogation.

It is therefore saddening and shocking that the present central
Government of Nigeria and its security agencies have continuously
chosen to rigmarole in frivolities and irrelevancies; instead of
studying and addressing the findings arising from various credible
reports on “industrial scale” rights abuses and violations by
military and other security commanders or agencies in Nigeria. The
intolerance of the Government and shielding of the culprit
commanders have not only fueled the impunity but also turned the
perpetrators into repeat offenders or atrocity
criminals and-escalated the abuses and violations.

The Government of Nigeria is therefore treading on international
dangerous path by threatening or calling for closure
of the offices of Amnesty Int’l in
Nigeria. Apart from lacking municipal and
international power to do so, AI is a
borderless organization that operates beyond national
and international borders and an integral part of
the global community or
village. AI activities also
cover the rights and fate of 10 million stateless
persons across the world.

The Government of Nigeria must, therefore, reverse its boat of
prediction and return the country to the right path. Continuously
threatening, intimidating, harassing and censoring the activities
of AI and other local and international
rights groups or interfering with their research or investigative
works can boomerang and lead the country into international
isolationism. Protecting or shielding the perpetrator or culprit
commanders can also attract international sanctions and
blacklisting or international policing and judicial embarrassments
by way of arrest at international borders and criminal trials. It
can also lead to stoppage of humanitarian and development aides;
among other international civil and criminal reprimands or
reparations.

To effectively combat the insurgency operations or violence in
the Northeast, Nigeria, the country must demystify the operations
including comprehensive reorganization of the country’s security
forces particularly the Armed Forces and the Police. The present
COAS has not only overstayed in his position, having been due for
statutory retirement since January 2016, but he has also failed
woefully in his duties as COAS and overspent his welcome. There
must be total reversal and abolition of the above
named 14-point fundamental drawbacks in
the country’s security establishments including the Armed Forces
and the Police.

With the country’s 300, 892 officers and personnel of the
Nigeria Police Force and their over N300b or $1b annual recurrent
expenditures, Nigeria spends or loses at least N1.5m annually to
keep each of them in service; and with N700b or $2.3b annual
defense expenditures for the country’s 181,000 officers and
personnel of the Armed Forces, Nigeria spends or loses at least
N3.5m to keep each of them with weapons allocated to each. Nigeria
also spends over N150b or $500m annually to keep 100,822 officers
and personnel of its paramilitary formations as well as officers
and personnel of SSS and NIA; on average of at least N1.25m
each.

Yet, despite these huge defense and other security expenditures
by the central Government of Nigeria, there is little or nothing to
show for such huge spending. Insecurity has not only risen to
maddening and intractable levels, but the country’s intelligence
has been brutally collapsed; with electronic security and
intelligence nowhere to be found in the country. Nigeria’s
e-security and e-intelligence have acutely remained locomotive and
in shortest supply while the country’s regional and international
counterparts have for long advanced into the age of “artificial
intelligence” where mental intelligence is transformed into machine
intelligence and bossed by the same mental intelligence for “super
man-machine intelligence”.

What is constructively needed in the counter insurgency
operations in the Northeast are not battalions of infantry soldiers
or containers load of AK-47 and other automatic rifles or hundreds
of war jets; but super human and electronic or machine intelligence
accompanied by sincerity of purpose, openness and political
sagacity. Shrouding the counter insurgency operations in
“meta-secrecy” and releasing in droves hundreds of Boko Haram
insurgents or conscripting them, if true, into the Armed Forces and
the Police, expressly calls for international attention and
comprehensive inquiries. They also raise a fundamental question of
sincerity of the counter insurgency operations.

Signed

For: Int’l Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of
Law

Emeka Umeagbalasi, Uju Joy Igboeli and Chidinma
Udegbunam

Mobile Line: +2348174090052

Email: info@intersociety-ng.org^[1]

Website: www.intersociety-ng.org^[2]

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