INSURGENCY INSURGENCYAND HUMAN RIGHTS AND HUMAN RIGHTS INI NNOR NTHERNORTH ERN NIGERIANIGERIA SStatestates affect edaf byfected the insurg ebyncy the insurgencies EDITED BY Habu Galadima Moses T. Aluaigba INSURGENCY AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN NORTHERN NIGERIA Edited by Habu Galadima Moses T. Aluaigba © Centre for Information Technology and Development ISBN: 978-978-945-862-2 First Published in 2015 Published by Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) 3rd Floor, NSITF Building, No. IA, Social Insurance Road, Behind Trade Fair Complex, Zaria Road, Kano State P.O. Box 10210 E-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] Website: www.citad.org, www.citad4peace.org.ng All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the publisher TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS ……………………………………………..........iii ACKNOWLEDGMENT …………………………………………........…...v CHAPTER ONE Introduction Moses T. Aluaigba …………………………………………………......……1 CHAPTER TWO Human Rights Abuses in the Context of Insurgency: A Study of Selected Incidences of Insurgence Killings in Yobe State Raji Rafiu Boye ……………………………………………....…….………11 CHAPTER THREE The Ongoing Violations of Women's Rights in the Context of Insurgency in Borno State, Nigeria Abubakar Yahaya …………………………………….......………..………35 CHAPTER FOUR The Boko Haram Insurgency and Education: A Study of the Future Prowess Islamic Foundation School in Maiduguri Kyari Mohammed …………………………………………….......………..53 CHAPTER FIVE The State of Human Rights Since the January 20, 2012 Boko Haram Bombings in Kano State Nura Iro Maaji ………………………………………………....…………..61 CHAPTER SIX Insurgency in Kano: The Plight of Widows of Policemen Fatima A. Ibrahim …………………………………………………………81 CHAPTER SEVEN Human Rights Violations in the Context of Violent Insurgency in Plateau State Emmanuel Ande Ivorgba ………………………………………………......95 CHAPTER EIGHT Human Rights Abuses in the Context of Insurgent Violence in Nigeria: The Case of Apo Killings Muttaqa Yusha'u and Adam Alqali ..............................................................123 iii CHAPTER NINE Insurgency, Community Reliance and Human Rights Abuse: A Northern Bauchi Case Study Y. Z. Ya'u ……………………………………......…………..……………..153 CHAPTER TEN Conclusion Habu Galadima ……………………………………...………………..….171 ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS ………………………………………..177 ABOUT THE EDITORS …………………………………………………178 iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many organizations and individuals have contributed to the success of this project. The first is the MacArthur Foundation whose generous grant made it possible to commission the research from which the book has resulted. We are grateful to the Foundation. We would also like to express our appreciation to the MacArthur Foundation staff in the Africa Office, especially Dr. Kole Shettima, Amina Usman and Hauwa Kasim. They were very supportive. Dr. Kole Shittima, in particular, made sure he took part in all the workshops and made contributions that helped in shaping both the research and the book. We would like to thank our researchers without whose efforts there would have been no book to publish. We are grateful to them on the understanding, that in spite of what we did offer, they gave their time and intellect graciously to the project. We also appreciate the diligence and commitment of the staff of CITAD who worked hard to ensure the successful implementation of the project. Dr. Jibrin Ibrahim, Dr. Charmaine Pereira, Hajiya Saudatu Mahdi and Hajiiya Jummai Bappah offered not just their time in participation in the workshop, but also their advice and suggestions, which enhanced both the research and the outcome. We remain indebted to them and wish to express our appreciation for their unwavering. To Dr. Charmaine Pereira and Professor Okey Ibeanu, whose presentations at the research methodology workshop cleared the paths for the researchers, we have only words of gratitude to give. v vi CHAPTER ONE Introduction Moses T. Aluaigba Overview The phenomenon of insurgency is new to Nigeria's socio-political terrain; it is anathema to the two major religions in the country, namely Christianity and Islam. The rise of the Jama'atu Ahlil Sunnah Lidda'awati Wal Jihad group, also known as Boko Haram in Northern Nigeria, has undoubtedly presented peculiar security challenges in the region and endangered the frail thread that has sustained Nigeria's fragile national unity since 1960. The identity of this group has been variously defined. While some see it as terrorists, others view it as radicals who oppose the social rot inherent in Nigeria and wants to replace it with an Islamic model or order (Salihi, 2012: 212). Prior to 2009, the activities of the group were peaceful and confined to advocacy through preaching and mobilization for membership. However, for the past five years beginning from mid-2009, their activities have turned sadistic and have continued to be very violent, deadly and daring with immense concentration in the three states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa in the North- East Zone of Nigeria. The violence by the group has manifested in different forms, such as outright massive attacks on police stations, police and military barracks, markets, educational institutions and targeted bomb attacks on government buildings, motor stations, churches, mosques, banks and filling stations. The sect has also expressed its violent character through the individual and mass abduction of prominent personalities like traditional leaders and clerics, school children and foreigners, suicide bombing using teenage girls and cars loaded with explosives, detonating improvised explosive devices at strategic locations and so on. The consequences of these variegated forms of attacks have been monumental. Apart from the huge economic losses incurred as a result of insurgent attacks on infrastructure with grave effects on development in the north that will take years to rectify (Tell, October 28, 2013: 42-50); the economic activities in Northern Nigeria, in general, and the North-East Zone, in particular, have been thrown into a state of inertia because of heightened insecurity. Similarly, associated with insurgent attacks is the high level of human casualty. From 2009 to 2012, a total of 2,993 people comprising Muslims and Christians perished (Chouin, Reinet and Apard, 2014: 233) due to insurgent violence by the group on the one hand, and due to counter-insurgent activities by security operatives, on the other. While the group kills villagers and students in hundreds on a weekly basis; the security agencies kill both insurgents and civilians through extra-judicial killings (Newswatch, August 24, 2009:10-18; August 1, 2011: 14-20; and November 21, 2011: 12-19). 1 Furthermore, the psychological trauma that victims of insurgency suffer is tremendous. This especially affects children, some of who have watched their parents killed in their presence during raids by the Boko Haram members. In fact, out of fear, some abducted school children who managed to escape from the group get scared of going back to school to continue their education. This endangers their future. Also, insurgent activities have led to social dislocation of the population in the affected states. Thousands of people have been forced to acquire the status of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) because they have been compelled to leave their homes to safer places. One other result of insurgency is the disruption of the school system because schools were forced to close in Borno and Yobe States for fear of attacks, thereby jeopardizing the educational future of majority of the children. Finally, Nigeria's international image has further been battered as the country has been ranked by the London-based Institute for Economics and Peace on the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) for 2013 as the fourth most terrorized nation in the world due to serial insurgent attacks in the north. This has potentially deterred investors and tourists from coming to Nigeria. All the efforts made by the Nigerian government, including the imposition of a state of emergency on Adamawa, Borno and Yobe States and the subtle attempts to broker peace and ceasefire through negotiation with the group to contain it, have all failed to end insurgency in the north. In the emerging robust literature on the subject of insurgency in Nigeria, there exist numerous postulations intended to explain the reasons for the rise of insurgency in Northern Nigeria as demonstrated by the activities of Boko Haram. For instance, the view of Salihi (2012) is that the rise of Boko Haram is rooted in governance failure in Nigeria. That is, the inability of government to provide an enabling socio-political environment in Nigeria because of corruption has, in turn, generated poverty and unemployment and, conversely, produced violent groups, such as the Odua People's Congress (OPC), the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), Niger Delta militants, Boko Haram, etc. According to Walker (2012), what has ignited the dexterity of the sect is the method of counter- insurgency deployed by Nigeria's security agencies. This is more so because the “tactics employed by government security agencies against Boko Haram have been consistently brutal and counterproductive. Their reliance on extrajudicial execution as a tactic [has not only] ...created Boko Haram, as it is known today, but also sustains it and gives it fuel to expand” (Walker, 2012: 12). There