Baga, Our Military and the ICC
By Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde
After reading many reports and listening to many others on the recent massacre in Baga, I have reached the unavoidable conclusion that even by Nigerian military’s punitive standard, Baga, by its sheer scale of destruction, deserves the intervention of the International Criminal Court. Now is the time if future occurrence is to be prevented. This crisis must also be settled even if only in the interest of the politicians – who have the least respect for our collective good – before 2015. Otherwise, that election year will be a disaster waiting to happen.
Baga must be the last stroke that should break the JTF camel. For the death of just one soldier – and our soldiers often boast in pepper soup joints that they are ready to die when death is not by the corner – over 200 people have been reported killed and 2000 houses were burnt. The figure is bound to rise as the hope of finding alive those missing continues to fade away with the passing hours.
Apart from the scale, there is nothing new in Baga. Human right groups and the international media have since the onset of the Boko Haram insurgency two years ago reported recurrent acts of mass killings of civilians, arson and extrajudicial killings of suspected members of the insurgent sect by the Nigerian military.
The Nigerian military authorities have responded to all the complaints, allegations and reports of these war crimes with a characteristic denial of their occurrence or by downplaying their scale. In Baga, it was not possible to deny the occurrence. Thousands of burnt houses are greeting every visitor. So the Nigerian military, the President and government officials have been overdoing the attempt to get the world to accept a less implicating figure of 36 deaths – in revenge for the death of one soldier.
It took a week after the Tuesday night killings, a visit by the Governor of Borno State on Sunday and a flood of media reports indicting the Nigerian government before the Commander of the Multinational Joint Task Force (MJTF) was, for the first time, ready to face the world, with his conscience probably stained with blood of the innocent, to tell his own version of the story. Though he did not deny the 185 deaths that the local government officials gave before him the previous Sunday when the state governor visited the scene, the implication of conceding such a high figure that was to his attention by pressure from above persuaded him to massively edit the toll to 36 deaths only. Hear him:
“During the encounter, one soldier was killed and five soldiers injured, while 30 Boko Haram terrorists lost their lives with five arrested…six civilians lost their lives and ten others were injured in the encounter.”
Only. Only. Hahahaha…
Okay, okay Mr. Commander. You mean all the killings were done by Nigerian soldiers, except the single soldier killed by Boko Haram and the five under dispute over the identity of the killers? Are Boko Haram becoming more humane than the Nigerian military in the battlefield? Were these the same Boko Haram you claimed “came out with heavy firepower, including rocket-propelled grenades, which caused conflagration effect”, yet unable to cause massive deaths?
So Boko Haram’s heavy firepower did not kill any Nigerian soldier apart from the initial officer, nor did it kill more than two or three civilians, but their “rocket propelled grenade bombs, anti-aircraft guns and sophisticated IED materials…triggered fire to (only) 30 thatched houses…”
Mhmm. But the pictures shown in the media were clearly not of thatched houses. Thatch houses in this part of the country are made of mud. And their figure was not 30; otherwise, the Borno State government since would have completed their repair since. The Red Cross, I believe, gave a more honest figure, through the BBC: “about 2000 houses have been burnt down in Baga.” Well the houses are there for people to count.
The Director of Defence Information, Brig. Chris Olukolade, has not been doing a clean job in his effort to downplay the death figures. After a visit to Baga along with some other senior military officers, he said that there was no mass grave in the area – as if very 200 deaths must be buried in a mass grave! We have seen many conflicts in Nigeria in which thousands of people were killed, but no mass graves were discovered. I do not know if the military delegation has seen the graves of even the 36 people killed as reported by the MJTF.
Olukolade did not report that. May be he did not see them. And he was mistaking the reply of the district head when the latter said he did not know the number of dead people to mean that the death toll was not up to 200. So all the victims in the camps and local government officials connived, for the sake of relief materials, to hike the number of casualties, as Olukolade charged?
Now let us move to the big question: Why did Nigerian military authorities prevent journalists, activists and even relief organizations from reaching Baga for over a week after the incidence if their hands were clean? Were they afraid that the “ghost” Boko Haram would kill such visitors? Something is amiss, as this question has practically proved impossible for the Nigerian military to answer.
This massacre was not the first and it will not be the last, from all indications. If the MJTF is determined in “routing out Boko Haram terrorists from their base”, to borrow the words of Olukolade, then the world must be ready to receive more agonizing stories of massacres in seven local governments of Borno North which are literally occupied by Boko Haram. The Nigerian military has been consistent in the way it treats civilians in this conflict: kill one soldier and we will eagerly and swiftly respond in three ways: we kill many Nigerians, burn their houses and deny any culpability or downplay the scale of our destruction.
This is a classical case for the ICC to intervene in. The killings must neither continue nor go unpunished. The international community has treated Nigeria with kid’s glove on issues of war crimes and related matters. And any time it is caught in the act, it would tender an apology to the UN and promise investigations.But no investigation by this administration has ever been useful. Unless a strong signal is sent to one of the most corrupt regimes on earth, it will continue to celebrate the impunity it has exhibited since the beginning of the crises.
The intervention of the ICC now will also save Nigeria a lot before 2015. Without it, this conflict will certainly escalate into something that will not be desirable to the politicians, especially members of the ruling PDP. This conclusion has not escaped my mind few hours ago as I watched Aljazeera report of how the Taliban has been bombing the campaign rallies of the Pakistani ruling party and its coalition partners.
Remember the first name that Boko Haram called itself was Nigerian Taliban. I have no doubt that Boko Haram will borrow a leaf from the Taliban, as they have been doing, and 2015 will be a difficult year not only for us, the civilians whose life mean nothing to the President, but also for the politicians that think they can continue to use the military for their ends. That day, the rich will also cry

Ddaji pls tell me of any war or military intervention that didnt claim innocent lives? I am waiting...

don buchi: Ddaji pls tell me of any war or military intervention that didnt claim innocent lives? I am waiting...

innocent lives will mean much to you if your family was killed in Baga abi?

U call them innocent civilians albeit their harbouring those boko haramites...damn u ass hole.they got exactly what they bargained for.

@Danbuchi and cashio you have excellence defence for massacre committed by army against poor defenceless civilian of baga.clap for yourselves.Hope FGN will use the same excuses at ICC

Most of the so called casualties are non combatant terrorist, they worship in the same mosque with BH.

The case of Nigeria is not about Baga and ICC nor is it about Odi and ICC.

It is about a mis-amalgamation, Britain and UN.

ICC will only recommend compensation to Baga people, if they win the case. But the blood shed in Nigeria will surely continue.

Where you have these MISERABLE Northern Elites condemn the JTF much more than they ever do the Boko Haram terrorists (that is if they ever do),and also trying to just understand the FEROCITY with which they do this condemnation at any 'chance' they get, is perhaps the CLEAREST inkling as to why the BH crisis has not been totally nipped in the bud regardless of the Brave efforts of the Security Agencies and other people of Goodwill in the north.

But then again: who is losing again?? Whose region is been destroyed by a group of Religious Fanatics?

O! Let them CONTINUE in their game; we shall soon know who would completely lose out at the end of the day.

I just wonder when the so called "Northern Elders" who have lost direction and core sympathizers of the Boko Haram sect will ever come back to their senses,non of them is worried why the the so called innocent people habouring terrorists who also kill other people's children in the name of fight for God are perpetrating their evil. The truth of the matter is that, there will be no JTF if the so called Northern have played their roles from the word go, the JTF personnels have families and people that love them, the blame game the northern elders keep playing will solve anything, they should call the Boko Haram to order and stop disturbing us with talks that are not meaningful..