‘We are ready,’ Defence Chief says Nigerian military not afraid of ICC investigation

Nigeria’s Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Christopher Musa, said the country’s military is open to investigations for alleged war crimes committed by counterterrorism soldiers deployed to conflict zones, especially in the North-east.

The military chief disclosed this in a recent interview with Al Jazeera when asked to comment on a lawsuit filed by Amnesty International at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, accusing the military of war crimes such as attacks on civilians, extrajudicial executions, torture, rape, and enforced disappearances in the insurgency-torn North-east.

The rights group said more than 10,000 civilians have died in military custody since the Boko Haram insurgency began in the North-east. This was not the first time the organisation had made this allegation. In 2020, Amnesty said many of the civilians died in Giwa Barracks, a military detention facility in Borno State.

‘We are ready’

“We are ready to go [to the ICC],” the CDS, Mr Musa, said when the Al Jazeera journalist asked him to comment about the Amnesty lawsuit. “We are not afraid of anybody… I think they have their own intent on why they are doing that.”

“We are not scared of anything because we don’t have anything of such,” he added.

Mr Musa disputed the war crimes allegations, saying they were attempts to “demoralise my troops.”

“They want us to look bad,” Mr Musa said. “I just can’t understand why anybody will wake up and say that we are killing people when we are actually not doing the same.”

He explained that many humanitarian organisations, including the United Nations and Amnesty, are working in Giwa Barracks where more than 10,000 civilians allegedly died in detention.

Mr Musa said he wondered if Amnesty was trying to say other humanitarian bodies in the detention facility are complicit in the crime it is accusing the military of. According to him, if the military was doing anything wrong in the detention facility, other organisations present there would have voiced out.

The CDS made these remarks two weeks after President Bola Tinubu exonerated the armed forces of any wrongdoing, saying there was no reason for his government to probe them, especially on issues bordering on mismanagement of funds.

Is the Nigerian Armed Forces corrupt?

Asked about the procurement scandals and corruption in the military, Mr answered emphatically, saying: “We are not (corrupt). We are just a few good guys trying to do some job. But some people are just hell-bent on ensuring we don’t succeed. We don’t produce the equipment that we use.”

“We do not produce the equipment we need. It takes two to tango. So, if they are saying there is corruption. It takes somebody to give and collect. Which means those having these weapons are equally guilty,” he said, adding the country has a procurement procedure “which is being followed.”

The CDS lamented the hurdles the Nigerian government faces in procuring equipment.

“Even with our money at times, we find it difficult getting equipment, and the question is why?” Mr Musa asked, noting that insurgency in Nigeria lingers because “we have been denied access to equipment, even when we have our money…”

The CDS also addressed other issues such as why the insurgency has continued for more than a decade.

He described the insurgency as an “asymmetric warfare” different from a conventional war such as the ones Nigerian troops fought in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

“You are dealing with people who have a sense of belonging, believing what they are doing is right (ideology). You don’t see it on their foreheads. You don’t know who they are. They are just like normal human beings… because you have to respect human rights. You have to take up the laws of war. It makes it a bit more difficult because identifying who the enemy is, is unlike the conventional type…”

The army general also addressed the killing of civilians in airstrikes in places in Borno, Kaduna and Niger states.

He apologised for the accidental airstrikes and described them as “professional mistakes.”

“Some things are beyond your control. You don’t control the weather, we don’t control the atmosphere,” he said. “So even when you have it right, mistakes do come in and when it happens, we take responsibility and we make amends.”

Asked about justice, accountability and compensation, the CDS said the military has a “standing court martial for people who have committed offences.”

He explained that measures and incentives have also been put in place to “make amend for the [affected] communities” like Tudun Biri in Kaduna State.

“We have suspended the commanders that were on ground. We have taken responsibility for what they have done,” he said of the Tudun Biri accidental bombing in December 2023.

Mr Musa also disputed claims that France has established a military base in Nigeria.

“We do not encourage any foreign base. We have the capacity to secure our country, to secure the subdivision, and to assist Africa,” he said. “All we need is to continue to do joint training which we do, and get equipment that we need to help us project this war.”

According to him, such a base would “create more problems”.

The ongoing probe by the ICC

Before the case Amnesty said it filed at the ICC, the court had been investigating the military for similar issues.

PREMIUM TIMES reported that the ICC launched a preliminary examination into alleged war crimes by Nigerian security forces on 18 November 2010. The preliminary examination was completed 10 years later as the court opened a national investigation into murder, rape, torture and other human rights violations by counterinsurgency military operatives deployed to terrorised areas in the North-east.

However, a former ICC prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, explained that Nigerian military authorities informed her that “they have examined, and dismissed, allegations against their own troops.”

Since the national investigation into the matter was opened in 2020, the ICC has continued to engage the Nigerian government. The court, however, vowed to take charge of the prosecution “in the absence of genuine efforts by Nigerian authorities to bridge existing impunity gaps.”

Expressing the government’s dissatisfaction about the ICC’s “prolonged investigation,” the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, made a case at the 23rd Session of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute of the ICC, held in The Hague, Netherlands.

Mr Fagbemi said probing the military will demoralise the troops “laying their lives to defend the country against terrorists.”

Despite well-documented evidence that showed that soldiers, as well as terrorists, committed war crimes, Mr Fagbemi urged the ICC to stop probing the military.

“While we respect the court’s mandate to intervene when states are unable or unwilling to prosecute such crimes, it is important to emphasise that there must be respect and regard for the principle of complementarity,” the minister had said, emphasising that “the ICC is meant to act as a court of last resort, intervening only when national legal systems are unable or unwilling to address grave crimes.”

“I must assert that Nigeria does not fall under any such situation,” he continued. “Our nation has consistently demonstrated both the will and the capacity to investigate and prosecute serious crimes, including those committed by Boko Haram and other terrorist groups. We are proud of the Nigerian military, which has systems and structures in place to ensure their operations are guided by international humanitarian law and human rights principles.”

While the Nigerian government says its military has always acted professionally, there have been several cases of mass killing of civilians.

For instance, the New Humanitarian documented how the military, in 2021, invaded Bula Ali village in Borno State where they killed at least eight civilians, including minors they suspected to be affiliated with Boko Haram insurgents. The village had experienced a similar military invasion three times before. The military, however, declined to comment when the newspaper confronted it with its findings.

Also, a HumAngle investigation showed that many of some 25,000 civilians who went missing in Borno State are believed to be victims of extrajudicial killings and clandestine mass burials by the military and its local ally, the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF).

Outside the war against Boko Haram and its splinter groups, the Nigerian military has also targeted civilians in the North-west and North-central regions of the country including the Tudun Biri bombing.

This correlates with what the ICC said in one of its reports.

“The Office has examined information regarding a wide range of alleged crimes committed on the territory of Nigeria since 2010. While the Office’s preliminary examination has primarily focused on alleged crimes committed by Boko Haram since July 2009 and by the Nigerian Security Forces since the beginning of the non-international armed conflict between the Nigerian Security Forces and Boko Haram since June 2011, it has also examined alleged crimes falling outside the context of this conflict,” the ICC said.

However, it raised concerns about the existence and genuineness of national proceedings regarding these crimes. In view of this, it re-emphasised that it may be forced to take charge of the investigation.

One such killing that attracted the ICC’s attention was the mass killing of Shiites in Kaduna State.

In December 2015, soldiers in the convoy of former Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai, angered by the action of Shiite members who blocked a road and prevented the convoy of the army chief from passing, attacked the Shiites over three days. A year later, a public inquiry by the state government indicted the Nigerian Army for killing more than 300 Shiite members and dumping their bodies in a mass grave.

“The Nigerian Army used excessive force,” the 193-page report which has now been deleted from the website of Kaduna State, said.

The investigating panel recommended that “steps should immediately be taken to identify the members of the NA (Nigerian Army) who participated in the killings … with a view to prosecuting them.”

Specifically, the report indicted the former General Officer Commanding the Nigerian Army’s 1st Division, Adeniyi Oyebade, who allegedly deployed soldiers to carry out such a large-scale operation without recourse to the chain of command.

Nine years after the killings, there is no evidence that the military has taken action against its officers who perpetrated the act. No soldier has been tried or convicted for the killings.