The Northern Elders Forum (NEF) have said it has enough evidence to indict President Goodluck Jonathan and the Security Agencies for Human Rights Violations in the North when it files its complaint with the International Court of Justice (ICJ).<\/p>\n
Accusing Nigeria\u2019s government of human rights violations, NEF spokesman Ango Abdullahi said in a Voice of America, VOA interview that the group have been compiling evidence through its lawyers for a long time and that individuals, government and its agencies have been indicted.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we are doing now is to organize our evidence that would make it possible for us to make a very strong case against the government and its agencies, or up to individuals who may be complicit, in terms of the human rights violations that have been taking place in the last few years,\u201d said Abdullahi.<\/p>\n
He said the group has put together a team of lawyers that has been gathering evidence indicating that national army soldiers were involved in the recent killing of civilians at Baga.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is sufficient evidence, from our point of view, in terms of human rights violations that have been going on with a lot of impunity in the last three years or so around the activities of the government and its agencies and around the country,\u201d said Abdullahi. \u201cI think it\u2019s because nobody seems to really take the matter seriously to draw attention, not only to other parts of the world, to the Nigerian authorities themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
But supporters of the government say the administration is mandated to protect unarmed civilians and resolve the country\u2019s internal security crisis. They accused the NEF of failing to engage the government in its attempt to prevent violence, often carried out by members of the Islamist group, Boko Haram.<\/p>\n
Abdullahi denies speculation that the Elders\u2019 Forum is in any way linked to Boko Haram.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t create the insurgents. It may have been created by somebody, but it is up to the government to prove a case that the insurgency has been created deliberately to cause havoc in the country,\u201d said Abdullahi.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt happens that perhaps if there is any indication \u2026 that this matter has been politicized, it must have been politicized by the government or its agencies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boko Haram, which is based in Nigeria\u2019s north, has been accused of carrying out violent attacks in an attempt to force the country to adopt strict Islamic law.<\/p>\n
Human Rights Watch says Boko Haram-related violence has killed an estimated 3,000 people since 2009, a toll that includes killings by security forces.<\/p>\n
Abdullahi says the government has been unable to resolve the security threats members of Boko Haram pose to the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf this sect had been treated like many other sects that we\u2019ve had in this country for many years, perhaps we would not be where we are now,\u201d continued said Abdullahi, \u201cthere [have been] thousands of people detained in terribly inhumane conditions all over the country. Among the thousands of people that have been in detention for many years now, only one as far as I know is in court now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Abdullahi says the Elders group has decided to hold the government accountable for the extrajudicial killings he says are sometimes carried out by military officials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Northern Elders Forum (NEF) have said it has enough evidence to indict President Goodluck Jonathan and the Security Agencies for Human Rights Violations in the North when it files…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n