NORTHERN ELDERS TO SUE JONATHAN AT ICC

The Northern Elders Forum (NEF) and Dalung Foundation have disclosed their resolve to drag the President Goodluck Jonathan and the Federal government to the International Criminal Court of Justice (ICC) in The Hague for extra –judicial killings and other forms of human rights abuses.

The forum, in collaboration with other human rights groups said that Jonathan and other security chiefs are to be charged for extra-judicial killings by soldiers in the three north eastern states slammed by the emergency rule and strangulation of civilians in army barracks, with the use of underground detention centre.

Dalung, who spoke for the groups in Yola, yesterday said the NEF and Dalung Foundation have received report of extra-judicial killings by soldiers in other parts of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states.

He recalled that the Northern Elders Forum had set up the two committees of legal and security experts to investigate the details of the gruesome use of force against unarmed civilians in the affected states and forward appropriate recommendations.

“In our investigations, we received reports of the two committees on Security and Legal Matters, regarding extra-judicial killings by soldiers and the act of strangulating civilians in Military Barracks using an underground detention centre, while depositing the corps in hospitals.

“We, therefore, resolved to harmonize the reports of the committees, preparatory to filing a case of extra-judicial killings by the Nigerian Army.
 

“The reports and subsequent findings as well as documented evidence by the affected communities will be harmonized for further action”, he said.

The groups therefore called on the affected communities and families to provide details and information with pictures to the North-east zonal office in Yola.

It could be recalled that worried by increasing spate of terrorist attacks on the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja and the need to ensure that future attacks are prevented, some 500 members of the Boko Haram sect were reported to have been secretly ferried out of their hitherto detention centres, mostly in Abuja and its environs, to other parts of the country.

Reports indicated that some members of the sect had spent several months in detention.
A top security operative and prison official said the affected Boko Haram members were considered the dreaded ones and had been taken in by Nigerian troops.

Sources disclosed that the Boko Haram members have been taken into prisons in various parts of the country, mostly to the Eastern, Western and South-South parts of the country as awaiting trial inmates.

“They were disturbing and indoctrinating others into making trouble while awaiting trial. So we had to move them away. They will no longer be in the same cell again,” source said.

It was learnt that those earlier left behind in Abuja and Lokoja cells as well as in the State Security Service (SSS) camp and Kuje prisons after the attempted jail-break in Abuja, have all been replaced with newly arrested insurgents, allegedly brought into Abuja during the week by military personnel.

“For obvious reasons, I would not want to disclose the particular states they have been transferred to, but for emphasis, none of them has been moved to Lagos. They are in other states in the South-South, South East and very few in one State in the South Western part of the country,” another source revealed.

Source: Hope for Nigeria