Justice for wrongful detention

Also published in Daily Trust

Now that the federal government has begun to address the underlying factors that affected the combat morale of its troops fighting Boko Haram terrorists and resulted in their failure to contain, let alone defeat the terrorists, there is a dramatic improvement in the performance of the troops on the battleground.

Obviously, this would greatly contribute towards defeating the insurgents especially as it also comes while the federal government is taking measures to update its military arsenal and improve its military capabilities in its fight against the insurgents. Besides, the three-month ultimatum given to the military by President Buhari to defeat the terrorists further confirms his seriousness and commitment to do whatever it takes in order end this lingering crisis as soon as possible.

Also, though, realistically speaking, it won’t be that easy for the military to defeat the insurgents within this period, after all, yet it’s quite achievable anyway as long as the combat strategies and the other relevant measures being taken in this regard are sustained.

In addition to all these however, and in order to sustain the anticipated peace and prevent whatever is likely to retrigger any form of violent dissidence that could possibly escalate into another full-scale organized crime, the federal government must also take all necessary measures to create appropriate atmosphere for the achieved peace to last and thrive. This necessarily entails reviewing the cases of many Nigerians detained under the pretexts of the war against Boko Haram.

Ever since the eruption of the Boko Haram crisis in 2009, the Nigerian military, the police and the Department of State Security (DSS) operatives have arrested hundreds, if not thousands, of Nigerians who are still being detained in various prisons, military, DSS and police premises across the country, without trial.

By the way, though, tackling organized terror activities necessarily involves intelligence gathering and other covert strategies that lead to the arrest of some individuals suspected of involvement in, say, sponsoring the terrorists, instigating them, facilitating their activities or even sympathizing with them, such arrests must be strictly based on very credible intelligence and clear evidences. The arrested persons must also be appropriately tried to establish their guilt or innocence, to sentence them accordingly or simply discharge and acquit them. However, that wasn’t how a lot of, if not most of, those currently in detention for various terror-related charges were arrested or being treated.

In fact, no objective Nigerian can deny the fact that, since the outbreak of the crisis, the Nigerian military, the police and the DSS have earned a terrible notoriety due to the rampant acts of many of their personnel and operatives who would conduct random raids to roundup people, pick up individuals, open fire indiscriminately on people or kill them summarily after rounding them up, under the pretext of fighting the insurgents. 

Though, judging by the abatement of the people’s outcry against such excesses, it’s presumed that, the severity and the rate of occurrence of such incidents have considerably gone done over the past two years or so, which is in any case due to the sheer public condemnation and the amount of pressure the military and the other security operatives were exposed to by various organizations within and outside the country. 

Nevertheless, the previous administration of former president Goodluck Jonathan never showed any commitment to conduct any probe into even such indiscriminate and extrajudicial killings, let alone address the plight of the wrongfully detained Nigerians languishing in detention.

Anyway, now that the Buhari-led federal government is committed to the enforcement of law and due process, it’s expected that it will look into the cases of such Nigerians to ensure justice and fairness. This is particularly expected because, under the instruction of the federal government, the Nigerian military authorities are currently reviewing the cases of some thousands of its soldiers who were court-martialled and found guilty of various serious offences including desertion and mutiny, as a result of which they were given various punishments including death sentence. 

Obviously, notwithstanding the fairness or otherwise of the trial, the decision to review the affected soldiers’ sentences, is a deliberate show of tactical flexibility to absorb their grievances, which were, by the way, largely legitimate, having suffered from lack of proper motivation and insufficient weapon supplies as recently admitted by the former Chief of Defence Staff, Air Marshall Alex Badeh. The ongoing review therefore would probably culminate in the eventual quashing of the convictions and the reinstatement of most, if not all, of affected soldiers.

Anyway, while this would further boost the morale of the troops and improve their prospects of defeating the terrorists within the three-month ultimatum, the federal government should equally look into the plights of those detained Nigerians, so as to further improve the country’s prospects of victory and eliminate any possible obstacle that may hinder the achievement of the victory. 

Because, after all, being generally “very religious”, Nigerians rightly believe that victory will only be given by God the Almighty, which necessarily implies their belief that, God the Almighty may simply deny the government victory in the war due to its failure to address the rightful grievances of those helpless Nigerians who were victimized or wrongfully treated under the pretext of tackling terrorism.

In any case, the federal government should summon up the same spirit of wisdom and understanding to handle the cases of those detained Nigerians in order to prosecute those with apparently prosecutable charges against them, release and compensate those found to be wrongfully detained.