(Onitsha Nigeria, 10th of April 2016)-In Criminology, “dark
sides or figures of crimes” are totality of crimes reported to the
police but not recorded in the crime statistics or records of the Police Force
for primordial, nepotistic, incompetence and corruptive reasons. In the subject
under discussion, captioned and underlined above, dark sides inherent in
the latest DSS public statement in which it accused the IPOB of masterminding
the abduction, murder and shallow burial of five “Hausa-Fulani” citizens in Isiukwuato
LGA of Abia State; are singling out of citizens of a particular section of the
country and their alleged abduction, murder and shallow burial as deserving
national securitization attention and urgent concerns; while trashing others in
similar category or fate into the dark sides dustbin.
The literal meanings and
summaries of the DSS latest public statement are: (1) there are indiscriminate
State actor and non-State actor related killings going on in Abia State; (2) there
are indiscriminate dumping of murdered citizens in burrow pits and shallow
graves in Abia State; (3) there are indiscriminate shallow mass graves in
Isikwuato LGA of Abia State where the Service discovered five lifeless bodies
of the “Hausa-Fulani” citizens and other shallow graves containing over 50
yet-to-be identified others; (4) IPOB has resorted to reprisal killings and
armed violent group; (5) alleged perpetrators of the said abduction, murder and
shallow burial of “five Hausa-Fulani” citizens are still on the prowl; (6)
Hausa-Fulani natives are the first class citizens in Nigeria deserving special
government protection and concerns, while other natives particularly Igbos are
second class citizens deserving no State protection, attention and concerns;
(7) among others.
Further, the DSS publication has
completely vindicated the recent position of ours (International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law)
that Abia
State is riddled with indiscriminate killing of unarmed civilian citizens and
dumping of their lifeless bodies in shallow graves or burrow pits. In
February 2016, 16 bodies of murdered citizens suspected to be members of IPOB
were discovered and pictured in two communities close to Aba in Abia State.
Informed alarms were raised, leading to our detailed compendium of facts and
text to the Federal Government; yet no response till date. We went further to
bring the attention of the Government of Abia State via a letter; again,
nothing was done, except setting the corpses ablaze to erase traces of
culpability. Just recently, there was another report of discovery of eight more
dead bodies dumped in fold pit in the border town of Etche in Rivers State. The
Community is between Abia, Imo and Rivers State.
Unlike the DSS account, which
originated and ended in text with no pictorial, video and other graphic backup
pieces of evidence; ours was statistically and pictorially presented with video
clips. Even though the DSS account is characterized with inherent minuses and
flaws, but we are tempted to not to discard it because in crime statistics and
its management; DSS account is treated as official crime statistics, despite
its inherent flaws. The DSS account under reference is also terminally sick in reliability,
validity, credibility and reality. It is also inter-service
encroachment oriented.
By statutory establishment, the
DSS functions are strictly restricted to interior intelligence, protection of VIPs and
oversight or auxiliary functions in the areas of crimes against the State and
public stability; and certainly not street crimes (i.e. crime against
persons, such as murder, abduction, etc). In the instant case, the best
the DSS would have done was to share basic intelligence or outcome of its preliminary
investigation with the Homicide Department of the Nigeria Police Force;
assuming the Service was the first security intelligence outfit to be alerted
by complaining parties (if any). In standard criminal investigation
management, two dominant ways of criminal reporting or complaints are
by operational
beat or citizen report.
That is to say that the DSS
magisterially usurped and encroached into an area outside its statutory and
operational mandate; leading to quackery issuance of the public statement,
quackery presentation of same with quackery and hasty conclusion (i.e. linking
the alleged crime to IPOB) Strictly speaking, “crimes of abduction, murder and
unlawful interment” reside with the Homicide Department of the Nigeria Police
Force under the Force/State Criminal Investigation Department (FCID or SCID)
and the office of the Director of Coroner’s Inquest of a State and not the DSS.
The DSS may supplement (not supplant) the roles of the Nigeria Police Force in
intelligence gathering and sharing particularly in the area of abduction (only
if abduction element is so contained in the instant case). There is nowhere in
the DSS structure and establishment (i.e. National Security Intelligence
Agencies Act of 1986) where “the Homicide Department” is located, except the
Nigeria Police Force.
Therefore, the only indisputable
fact that we can make out of the DSS public statement under reference, is that “Abia
State is presently riddled with indiscriminate killings and dumping of those
unlawfully killed citizens in shallow graves and burrow pits”. This stark truth
is also within the reach of non State actors or “unofficial crime statisticians or
sources”. As for the true identities and nativities of
those allegedly murdered and shallowly buried as well as those who allegedly
killed them, as told by the DSS; it is statutorily and professionally left for
the Homicide Department of the Nigeria Police Force to determine same through
impartial and in-depth investigations. Further to this is when and how they
were murdered, which reside in the hands of criminal pathologists and office of
the Director of Coroner’s Inquest in Abia State.
The DSS public statement failed
woefully in criminology and criminal homicide to answer the following questions: How
were the “five Hausa-Fulani” citizens abducted, murdered and shallowly buried
by “IPOB” (i.e. were they shot, beheaded, strangulated, clubbed, poisoned, macheted
or lynched)? Why were they abducted, murdered and shallowly buried by “IPOB in
Isiukwuato LGA of Abia State? What are the identities of “fifty others” the
Service said it found scattered in other mass graves in Isiukwuato LGA of Abia
State? Where are the live pictures and families of the “five Hausa-Fulani”
citizens it said were abducted, murdered and shallowly buried in Isiukwuato LGA
of Abia State by IPOB? Where were they abducted and murdered before being
shallowly buried in Isiukwuato forests? What are their communities, LGAs and
States of origin in the North? Have their corpses been exhumed and kept where?
Until concrete and satisfactory
answers are provided and until the Homicide Department of the Nigeria Police Force
and the office of the Abia State Director of Coroner’s Inquest step in to
unravel these, the DSS public statement under reference will remain thousands
of miles away from science of reality, reliability, validity and credibility.
This is more so when the Service has earned national and international
notoriety in spearheading the use of judicial and structural violence against
the Indigenous People of Biafra or IPOB, its leadership and teeming supporters
across the country particularly in the Southeast and the South-south Zones of
Nigeria. It may most likely be another way of “giving a dog a bad name so as to
hang it”. The outcome of our demanded investigation shall tell.
In all, it remains our resolute position that
killing of any Nigerian citizen outside the law irrespective of his or her
tribe, colour, sex, age or religion; whether by State actor or non-State actor
is frowned at and condemned at all times. Worst of the condemnation is class-treatment
of Nigerian citizens by the country’s security and other law enforcement
agencies and officers of the government; whereby citizens of Igbo origin are
treated as if they are sub humans and destined to be killed like fowls, while
those of Hausa-Fulani and Yoruba origins are kingly treated and protected by
the State using our collective or common resources.
Signed:
For: International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law
Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board Chairman
Mobile Phone: +2348174090052
Obianuju Joy Igboeli, Esq.
Head, Civil Liberties & Rule of Law Program
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