SERAP reports FG to UN over southern Kaduna killings

Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) has dragged President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government of Nigeria to the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner.

SERAP, in a petition to the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Ms. Agnes Callamard, asked her to “prevail on the Nigerian authorities to halt further killings of innocent citizens in Southern Kaduna and to “visit Nigeria to conduct fact-finding mission into the circumstances surrounding the killings.”

SERAP Executive Director, Adetokunbo Mumuni, is seeking among other things in the petition that the masterminds of the carnage be brought to book and the victims compensated.

Dated December 30, 2016, the petition argues that the “killings of citizens in Southern Kaduna of Nigeria amount to serious violations of the rights to life; to security of the human person; to the respect of the dignity inherent in a human being; and right to property guaranteed by not only the Nigerian Constitution 1999 (as amended) but also the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which Nigeria is a state party.”

SERAP in the petition went further to state that the “Nigerian authorities have failed and/or neglected to respect these human rights and to exercise due diligence to ensure that these rights are not violated by private individuals such as herdsmen and other unknown perpetrators.”

Read also: No less than 808 murdered in Southern Kaduna, Catholic Church says

The group therefore demanded that Nigerian government should be held to account for failing or neglecting to guarantee and protect the rights of the people in southern Kaduna, notwithstanding whether such violations are directly or indirectly attributable to the state or its officials.

“The lack of accountability for the attacks by herdsmen and other unknown perpetrators across the country has continued to create a culture of impunity which clearly is not compatible with the rule of law in a democratic society.

“According to the leadership of the Catholic Diocese of Kafanchan in Kaduna State, a total of 808 people were killed in 53 villages across the four local government areas in the state ridden by crisis… 57 people were injured; farm produce estimated at N5.5 billion were also destroyed, and a total of 1,422 houses and 16 churches were burnt during the attacks across Kaura, Sanga, Jama’a and Kauru local government areas where there had been persistent attacks on communities by gunmen believed to be Fulani herdsmen,” SERAP said.

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