NIGERIA has been fined $3.3m by the Economic Community of West African States, (Ecowas) Court over the extra-judicial killing of eight artisans and traders in the Apo District of Abuja in September 2013.
Three years ago, security officials stormed a street located behind Zone E of the Apo Legislative Quarters going straight to an uncompleted building inhabited by homeless artisans and petty traders and immediately began shooting at random, killing eight of them and injuring 17 others. Later, the operatives claimed the men were killed in a shootout with Boko Haram insurgents.
Unable to afford the excessively high cost of housing in Abuja, these squatters usually gather in scores to sleep on mats in the few uncompleted buildings on the street, after returning from their daily jobs. Human rights groups representing those murdered decided to sue the government and have now won a civil case in the Ecowas court.
Ecowas court judges ordered the Nigerian government to pay a compensatory damage of $200,000 to each of the families of those killed and $150,000 to each of the injured by a combined team of soldiers and operatives of the Department of State Service (DSS). They were killed when the security personnel opened fire on them and it was later discovered that they were commercial motorcycle or Okada riders who were taking refuge in the uncompleted building as a result of high house rents in the capital city.
Those killed include Nura Abdullahi, Ashiru Musa, Abdullahi Manmman, Buhari Ibrahim, Suleiman Ibrahim, Ahmadu Musa, Nasir Adamu and Musa Yobe. Eleven others sustained various degrees of injuries from the bullets of the soldiers and DSS operatives.
Non-governmental organisation, the Incorporated Trustees of Fiscal and Civil Right Enlightenment Foundation had on behalf of the deceased dragged Nigeria, the army and DSS before the regional court to challenge the legality of the killings. In the judgment delivered by presiding Justice Friday Chijioke Nwoke, Nigeria was found liable of brutal killing of defenceless citizens contrary to the provisions of local and international laws on the fundamental rights of citizens to life.
The panel of three justices headed by Justice Nwoke condemned the killings as barbaric, illegal, unconstitutional and a breach of the fundamental rights of the deceased to life. In addition, the court rejected the plea by Nigeria that its security personnel killed the deceased in an attempt to defend themselves, pointing out that there was no iota of evidence that any of the deceased carried cutlasses or guns against the security men when they invaded their house.
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