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| Buratai |
The news of the award of “the Brazilian Military Order of
Merit Award”(Brazilian Army Butchery Award), to Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff,
Lt Gen Tukur Yusuf Buratai, said to have recommended by the Brazilian Army
Commander, Gen Edwardo Villas Boas and approved by President Michel Temer; is
not surprising to us at Intersociety. The “award”; touted, noisily celebrated
and overblown by the COAS’s media and image managers and aides as “the highest
military honour in Brazil”, is nothing short of “Brazilian Army Butchery
Award”.
The socio-political circumstances leading to the said
butchery award are also utterly cloaked in the layers of controversy and
diplomatic quackery, which have further rendered the award laughable and watery
and messed up general credibility that follows modern meritorious or excellence
award.
For the avoidance of doubt, President Michel Miguel Elias
Temer Lulia, age 75; as he is truly called, became President of Brazil only
seven months ago or on 31st August 2016, following the celebrated impeachment
over serious charges of corruption of his boss, Madam Dilma Rousseff, whom he
has been deputizing since 2011. The central government headed by his boss was
seriously accused of involvement in the Petrobras scandal which involved
kickbacks and corruption. The serious accusation later snowballed into country
wide protests by millions of Brazilians calling for her resignation, arrest and
prosecution; which eventually led to her impeachment in late August 2016.
Also the Brazilian Army Chief, General Eduardo Dias Costa
Villas Bôas, as he is truly called, who was said to have recommended the
butchery award to be bestowed on the Nigeria’s COAS; was appointed the Army Chief
by impeached and former President, Madam Dilma Rousseff on 12th January
2015. That is to say that the Brazilian Army Butchery Award truly stems from
reward for being artistic in civilians’ butchery. It is also an act of
diplomatic roguery and quackery.
From the foregoing, therefore, it is an incontestable fact
that those who were diplomatically facilitated to engineer the military
butchery award in Brasilia for the COAS know nothing about the atrocious activities
of the Nigerian Army under the midwifery of COAS, Lt Gen Tukur Yusuf Buratai,
particularly from July 2015 when the current COAS was appointed.
Another reason for the butchery award may most likely be a
sort of thanking the Nigerian Army and Government for patronizing Brazil’s State
owned or controlled warehouses responsible for production and shipment of licit
small arms and light weapons (SALWs) to Nigeria.
This is more when it is unhidden that Nigeria now serves as
a major buyer and dumping ground for small arms and light weapons from Europe, China
and Americas. Nigeria is also about to overtake Algeria and Angola licitly as
Africa’s largest arms spender and buyer annually. Illicitly speaking, the
country through conflict profiteers or profiteers of violence is one of the
largest buyers of SALWs in Africa.
It is also on global and scholarly records that the State of
Brazil and its Army has no place in the global hall of fame, gold and human rights.
From various scholarly research accounts, Brazil is one of the world’s leading
producers and exporters of small arms and light weapons (SALWs) and it is
responsible for a reasonable percent of licit and illicit trade or shipment of
same to West Africa including Nigeria where they are used recklessly and
murderously by killer State and non State actors including Lt Gen Tukur
Buratai’s Nigerian Army.
Through the shipment of SALWs to Nigeria, which Brazil
co-participate, over 40,000 defenseless citizens have been killed by Islamist
Boko Haram and Fulani terrorists since 2009. Through the procurement and use of
same partly from Brazil, the Nigerian Army headed by Lt Gen Tukur Yusuf Buratai
and its sister armed agencies including the Nigeria Police Force have massacred
not less than 6000 unarmed, nonviolent and defenseless citizens since July 2015
when the COAS was appointed. The Nigeria Police Force, through its SARS and CIDs
account for 4000 extra judicial killings between June 2015 and this 2017; on average
of 200 citizens per month. The former chair of the National Human Rights
Commission, Dr. Chidi Odinkalu was recently quoted by Mr. Emma Onwubiko of
HURIWA to have disclosed on 12th March 2012 that Nigeria Police Force tortures
and kills 2500 citizens extra judicially on annual basis.
The COAS and his Army are specifically responsible for the
massacre of not less than 1000 unarmed and nonviolent members of the Islamic Movement
of Nigeria (Shiites) who were on religious processions in a broad day light in
Zaria in December 2015. The COAS made a hoax claim of assassination attempt on
his life to justify the mass murder and till date, he has not proved or
provided common or fundamental ingredients accompanying modern assassination
attempts (i.e. weapons and cartridges used portions of his vehicle shattered by
shot bullets, soldiers or attackers wounded or killed; names of the specific attackers,
etc).
As if that was not enough, the COAS and his Army also went
out of modern military ethics and codes; opened fire and shot and killed over 270
unarmed and nonviolent pro Biafra campaigners who engaged in nonviolent street
processions, protests and religious vigils. The Army killings took place in ten
different locations in the Southeast and the South-south of Nigeria. Over 800
members of IMN and pro Biafra campaign movements were also brutally shot and
terminally wounded by COAS and his Army; with several of them crippled for
life. Not done and satisfied with the enormity and gravity of butcheries so perpetrated,
the Brazilian Army Butchery Award-winning COAS and his Army; according to
Amnesty Int’l Report of 2016/2017, caused or facilitated the killing of 240
civilians including 29 children aged between new born and five years. They were
held in captivity in connection with Boko Haram insurgency at the Giwa
Military’s detention facilities in Maiduguri, Borno State; leading to their
mass killing. As we speak, all the perpetrators including the COAS are still on
the prowl with the military atrocities continuously swept under the carpet.
The referenced army butchery award is therefore not
surprising to us. All the butchers in Africa including late Idi Amin, Mobutu
Sese Seko, Emperor Bokasa, Sani Abacha, Charles Tarlor, Hissene Habre, Maummar Gaddafi
and several murderous past and present African Armies’ chiefs had at one time
or the other flooded their restrooms, bathrooms and sitting rooms with tens of
hundreds of paper, wooden and ceramic “merit awards”. The erstwhile SARS
commander in Anambra State, who has been indicted by several internationally
respected rights groups and research institutions on torture and extra judicial
killings; parades one of the highest numbers of “merit awards” including those facilitated
from foreign and national “rights NGOs” .
We therefore see the “Brazilian Military Order of Merit
Award” bestowed on the COAS as heightening of
the gong of justice and accountability over Buratai’s military
atrocities in Nigeria. The barrage and litany of condemnations and shocks
trailing the award, which are trending on web media, are substantially
responsible for the issuance of this statement. We will not be surprised to see
Nigeria’s print and electronic media being awash in coming hours with adverts from
gullible and conformist individuals and groups pouring out congratulatory
messages on the COAS over his “well deserved award”. It is also not surprised
if Nigerians see another round of rented crowd marching down Nigerian streets
in “solidarity” with the military butchery award and its winner.
Finally, the Brazilian miltary butchery award is a wakeup
call on all conscientious and courageous Nigerians of social versatility and letteredness
within and outside Nigeria to continuously sound the gong of justice and
accountability to the ears of COAS Tukur Yusuf Buratai and other perpetrators
of military and other regime atrocities in Nigeria or any part thereof; by
reminding them that the clock of justice and accountability is ticking and
steadily closing in on them. There shall be intensification of scholarly
searches across the world so as to explore available criminal and civil
judicial remedies and safeguards in various jurisdictions in various countries
of the world such as the Belgium’s Int’l Criminal and Civil Laws Jurisdictions
of 2005 (Sorry Day) (for punishment of the perpetrators of heinous crimes and
grievous rights abuses perpetrated outside Belgium). There are also Torture
Victims and Alien Torts Acts in USA as well as Int’l Criminal Court Enforcement
Jurisdiction in South Africa, etc. These should be fully studied and exploited
alongside judicially existing safeguards and remedies in Nigeria, the Rome
Statute, ECOWAS and AU Rights courts, African Special Criminal Court (i.e. that
sentenced Hissene Habre to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity at
Dakar Senegal in May 2016).
The leaderships of IMN and IPOB worldwide and their
supporters and sympathizers must not allow their slain comrades to die in vain.
Curses following such nonchalance and moral obligations will never be cleansed
in generations to come. Their killers must never be allowed go scot free even
if they end up procuring trailer loads of paper, wooden and ceramic “merit
awards”.
Signed:
Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board Chairman
Mobile Line: +2348174090052
Obianuju Joy Igboeli, Esq.
Head, Civil Liberties & Rule of Law Program
Chinwe Umeche, Esq.
Head, Democracy & Good Governance Program
Florence C. Akubilo, Esq.
Head, Campaign & Publicity Department
Contact: International Society for Civil Liberties &
Rule of Law
Phone
Lines: +2348182411462, +2349063500218
Email:
info@intersociety-ng.org
Website: www.intersociety-ng.org
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