A Nigerian Shiite group, Islamic Movement of Nigeria, IMN, has written
to the United States government urging it not to sell weapons or any
military hardware to the Nigerian government, Premium Times states.
The letter, which was dated August 17 and signed by the head of the Free
Zakzaky Campaign Committee, Abdulrahaman Abubakar, cited “appalling
human rights record” of Nigerian military as the reason for the group’s
“vehement objection to the proposed sale of weapons and military
hardware to the government of Nigeria.”
In the letter, the group stated that “the military’s human rights record
in Nigeria is utterly dismal and the Nigerian government’s commitment
to the rule of law is even worse off.”
It drew the attention of the U.S. government to “incessant refusal of
the government to acknowledge excesses of the military in handling
civilian matters, but even tries to justify them.”
IMN alleged the examples of “the blatant murder of 34 unarmed civilians
in Zaria in 2014, including the children of Sheikh Zakzaky, without the
government doing anything about it.
“As if it was not grievous enough, the murderous soldiers returned in
December, 2015 with an even more brutal force, resulting in the death of
over a thousand innocent citizens. The initial response of the
government to this callous disregard for human lives was to say, it was a
“military affair.”
The group further alleged that “there is usually no properly conducted
inquiries, no prosecutions, no remorse and no public apologies after
such acts by the military.”
The Shiites accused the Nigerian government of “shirking in its duties to hold its soldiers to account.”
The group further cited the case of continued incarceration of its
leader, Ibraheem Zakzaky, and his wife “after shooting them at
point-blank range, treated them in the most humiliating and denigrating
manner before hauling them into incommunicado detention without charges
for twenty months.
“Even after a Nigerian High Court had ruled that the detention is
unconstitutional and ordered their release, the government has continued
to contemptuously defy the order.”
The petition therefore called for a complete arms embargo to be placed on the Nigerian military.
It also wanted the embargo to be extended to travel bans and other
embargoes for senior military and political leaders “until a genuine
commitment to the principles of rule of law, justice, fair play and
human rights can be demonstrated beyond rhetoric and half-hearted
measures by the government”.
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