Senate report on Apo killings
were dimmed when a Senate panel, after unexplained delays, issued a rambling and contradictory report of its inquiry into the incident. Such understanding would guide future operations in similar circumstances. But the Senator Mohammed Magoro Committee effectively cleared security agencies of culpability in the death of the unarmed squatters, which was not part of its […]
were dimmed when a Senate panel, after unexplained delays, issued a rambling and contradictory report of its inquiry into the incident. Such understanding would guide future operations in similar circumstances. But the Senator Mohammed Magoro Committee effectively cleared security agencies of culpability in the death of the unarmed squatters, which was not part of its brief; and made no reference to the SSS initial allegation that the two buildings were occupied by members of the Boko Haram sect, which was.
The report however confirmed that most of the victims of the attack were odd-jobs men, some engaged in commercial motorcycle transport. Over 100 migrant workers were taking shelter in the buildings. Victims were shot as they ran out of the buildings for dear lives at night.
The report also established that the victims were menial job seekers who simply took shelter in the buildings; it went on to state that the operation that led to killing of eight squatters and wounding of eleven others “was not a case of extrajudicial killing but the outcome of hastily executed operation”. This attempt at fudging the criminal liability of the SSS officers in this instance is truly amazing on the part of the legislative panel. Some of Magoro’s colleagues have called the findings a whitewash. There is ample to believe it is.
By the panel’s submission, what the SSS did on September 20, 2013, was extrajudicial killing of unarmed citizen, only that it did not fix that label on the report, and that’s why it leaves much to be desired.
Given what has become public, there was no basis for the SSS officers to have acted the way they did. Even in circumstances in which suspects are believed or even confirmed to be Boko Haram insurgents, they cannot be executed without due process.
The Senate, in trying to absolve security agencies of responsibility in the extrajudicial killings, despite all the evidence and submissions in the report that point to the contrary, has done itself disfavour, because it opens the credibility of its report to question. It also lends credence to widespread suggestions that the committee came under tremendous pressure from certain quarters, including the Presidency and Senate leadership, not to indict the security agencies over the unlawful executions. The pressure may have caused the delay in the committee submitting its report on schedule.
Claims and counter claims by security agencies that ensued soon after it became known that a grievous crime had been committed in the Apo Killings also ensured that the truth would be among the casualties. The SSS for example, instead of admitting that it had erred in an operation that went horribly wrong, put out the canard that the security officers came under attack from occupants of the building, and produced no weapon or bullet to back it up. The Senate committee regurgitated the statement by the Department of State Services (DSS) that the September 20 operation was necessitated by electronic intercepts by the DSS which indicated plans to attack various locations in the FCT. There was no playback or printouts of such alleged intercepts.
The Senate panel has really done a poor job. Its report should be discounted in addressing the issues surrounding that unfortunate episode. A full accounting into that incident is called for; those who organised and executed the operation must be held to account. The purpose is not just punishment for the wanton killings, but to ensure that such incidents do not recur. The SSS should go beyond hush-hush burials of the victims of its flawed operation and provide compensation to their families.