Baga as metaphor
For officialdom, it must be a very tough and damnable affair that cameras don’t lie, and for some that may be their undoing. For, Baga is nothing but despotic African bigmanism writ large—abuse and misuse of, often illegitimate, power, monopoly and misapplication of force on a beleaguered people in a beleaguered polity; beastliness and trigger-happiness […]
For officialdom, it must be a very tough and damnable affair that cameras don’t lie, and for some that may be their undoing. For, Baga is nothing but despotic African bigmanism writ large—abuse and misuse of, often illegitimate, power, monopoly and misapplication of force on a beleaguered people in a beleaguered polity; beastliness and trigger-happiness in supposedly constitutional protectors whose pleasure in every sense lies in the misery of our people; but it is simply a true-life representation of what hell life has become for millions of our countrymen in the North-eastern part of this country; and, all in all on its own, it is only a thinly-veiled metaphor for the impunity and uncreativeness that has become the bitter reality of leadership, most especially when it comes as a cover-up for its incompetence and many failures.
Isn’t it enough tragedy for Nigerians that their military can commit such an atrocity against their own—or, indeed, any—people? They did the deed: they killed—more than 200, they pursued—an uncountable number into the bushes, and they set fire to homes—more than 2,000. Many would probably swear never to forgive them; but then they added salt to the injury by denying not only their culpability but even the fact of the crime having taken place at all. But then the cameras went to work. And they denied it all.
But why should anyone wish to kill innocent folks and destroy their town? Does someone have any particular agenda that such an unconscionable massacre will promote? Who is it and what can the agenda be? Or is someone worried and unhappy about the lull in violence, death and destruction across the northern part of the country? Or is there someone out there interested in scuttling the government’s amnesty programme? Who stands to lose if there peace in the North or gain if there is violence and insecurity? And is there a connection between the tragedy in Baga and the recent killing of policemen in the Niger Delta? Or is there any connection with the equally recent threat to start bombing mosques? We may never know when all they tell us are lies.
If Nigerian military commanders could tell such unconscionable lies: that only 37 people, and not the 200-300 spoken of by the people, were killed in the encounter, as if there is anything ‘only’ about human lives; that only a few houses, and not the 2,000 mentioned, were destroyed; that it was Boko Haram fire that set the town ablaze, something technically impossible for insurgents on the run, and this has been debunked by the Human Rights Watch report, which regarded the destruction as systematic; and if soldiers could lie, satellite pictures wouldn’t: aerial pictures of Baga on April 26, 2013, released by Human Rights Watch on Wednesday, May 2, 2013, corroborated claims by its townspeople that the attack on the town by the military on April 16 and 17 that more than 2000 houses had been burnt down; and interviews of survivors affirmed that more than 200 people had been killed and buried, with many still unaccounted for—died in the bush or perished in a fire that had been systematically set, and which, according to Human Rights Watch, “[b]ecause of the number of buildings destroyed by fire as well as their distribution across large sections of the town, such fires were intentionally set and not inadvertently sparked by the detonation of rocket-propelled grenades or improvised explosive devices.”
But the director of defence information, Brigadier Chris Olukayode, who is a member of the military investigation team despatched to Baga, was still not even sure if there was any atrocity in the town. He said both the casualty and the scale of destruction to property had been exaggerated; and of the little that was done, he knew who by: “the atrocities, if any, were carried out by the insurgents in an attempt to cause destruction and attack people not sympathetic to their cause.” This new intelligence would seem to run counter to all previous claims that civilian casualty was because townspeople always withheld information from the Joint Task Force or because they gave sanctuary to insurgents.
This should be the last time soldiers are drafted into operations of this nature or with this type of licence to kill without accountability; but this should be only after the killers in this case have been fished out and punished to the satisfaction of this nation. Otherwise, representatives of the people of Baga in the National Assembly, human rights groups and people of conscience in this country must take this matter to the International Criminal Court, which we respect as an institution, but whose decisions we reckon inadequate for the circumstances, because they won’t include the death penalty, which in this case, should be the least that ought to be handed out to those found guilty. And even if the court doesn’t impose what to us is the right punishment, it will at least have helped us take the first and most decisive step towards stamping out impunity and the abuse of people’s civil and even human rights in Nigeria.
The steps to realise this and the facts of the case are already taking shape; and we cannot agree more with Mr Daniel Bekele, Africa Director of Human Rights Watch. “The Nigerian military has a duty to protect itself and the population from Boko Haram attacks, but the evidence indicates that it has engaged more in destruction than in protection, he said. “The glaring discrepancies between the facts on the ground and statements by senior military officials raise concerns that they tried to cover up military abuses. The destruction and killings by soldiers in Baga are serious human rights violations. The government needs to investigate and prosecute the perpetrators regardless of rank.” And we are also at one with him on his effort urging the Office of the Prosecutor General of the International Criminal Court to widen the 2010 preliminary investigation it opened on the situation in Nigeria to include the Baga Massacre. Even if nobody cares for these poor people because they have not been to Western schools, or because there are no newspapers where they come from, or because political leaders, especially governors, fear to speak when the rights of the innocent are trampled underfoot, or because elites fear inconvenience, this is a matter that will not be allowed to die: somebody must be held responsible.
The Nigerian Army cannot and must not be allowed to continue to, and nor can the government, use the Boko Haram phenomenon, and especially its signal failure to deal with the challenge, as excuse and justification to use to deprive our people of their lives, their freedom, their wellbeing and their property—or use the cover of an imposed emergency to legitimise what is clearly an immoral, irresponsible, illegal and unacceptable conduct against its own people. What happened at Baga is a bloody war crime and a crime against humanity and must be treated as such; and what is happening in many other cities in the North is simply unacceptable and must stop.
If Nigeria cannot guarantee and protect their rights and freedoms, it should not expect their loyalty as a matter of fact. And the fear of the gun, which appears to be all that the government has to get and keep their allegiance, is not a good basis on which to lay down the principles and duties of god citizenship; because it is a temporary phenomenon, especially for those innocent souls forced to live under its terror day, day out. We should all be wary of the day they lose it.
If this highhandedness continues the military must understand and accept that it is deliberately creating a situation that will lead to regrettable national grief in which it may be the first casualty. If with all its sophisticated armaments, with all the impunity and ferocity of its extrajudicial terror, and with the apparent support of everyone who could speak but has elected to keep quiet, and with all the Drone-assistance and the blessings of the West on whose behalf half of the battle is being waged, it has failed to contain the Boko Haram challenge; it should take time to consider what will happen to it and to the nation when the entire North decides—as it will, when forced—to rise up and defend its rights and freedoms.