IFEDAYO OGUNYEMI reports that beyond the hardship the majority of Nigerians endured in 2023, the year was also brutal, as many citizens were ruthlessly killed by terrorists and other non-state actors.

In the 2023 calendar year, over 8,119 people were killed in over 4,326 violent events that were recorded across Nigeria, data obtained and analysed by the Sunday Tribune have revealed. Events in this context mean those relating to political violence, demonstrations (rioting and protesting), and other select non-violent, politically important events.

In the year under review, checks by Sunday Tribune showed that civilians were majorly at the receiving end in 1,901 events, leading to the killings of 2,705 civilians who were victims of targeted attacks nationwide.

The figure is according to data curated by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), a United States-based disaggregated data collection, analysis, and crisis mapping project that uses real-time data and analysis sources on political violence and protests worldwide.

According to the data, the single event with the most killings recorded happened on February 27, 2023, during a clash between Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) fighters and the JAS faction of Boko Haram at Choliye village in Konduga Local Government Area of Borno State. Reports noted that Boko Haram fighters who were fleeing the area with their families were killed by the ISWAP fighters. The death toll was put at 200, most of whom are children and women.

Four other events with the most number of fatalities recorded occurred in Rarah area of Rabah (Sokoto), Wa-Jahode and Grazah in Gwoza LGA (Borno), Dan Mani, coded to Dan Sadau forest, Maru (Zamfara) and Bulabulin, along the Komadugu-Yobe River close to Geidam (Yobe) on January 16^th, June 6, October 11 and November 2^nd respectively where the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) conducted airstrikes on Boko Haram fighters, Sokoto and Zamfara militias. Though hundreds of persons were killed in each of the separate attacks, 100 fatalities were recorded for each of them.

Meanwhile, the data curated by ACLEAD only covered reported cases leading up to December 8, 2023 (a total of 342 out of 365 days), as it temporarily paused its data release because of the end-of-the-year break/festivities. This invariably means data on reported killings in the country between December 9 and 31, 2023 (23 days) were excluded.

Notable among the events that occurred during the period is the Christmas Eve attack on over 64 communities in Mangun, Bokkos and Barkin-Ladi Local Government Areas of Plateau State where over 200 people were killed. The cause of the attack was attributed to the struggle for control of fertile farmlands in the area. In the days that followed, three youths, the Chief Imam of the Jumma’at Mosque of Ndun village of Tangur District of Bokkos LGA, Malam Muhammad Idris, and a motorcycle rider, Muhammad Gambo, were killed in separate attacks in the same state.

Going by ACLEAD data, an average of 23.7 persons were killed daily over the course of 342 days or simply put, an average of 1.9 persons were killed per event throughout 4,327 tracked events.

Political reasons accounted for most deaths

Of the total figure provided by ACLEAD, 8,001 were killed as a result of or during political violence that occurred in 3,214 separate events/attacks carried out by various state actors such as military and paramilitary agents as well as identified and unidentified armed groups such as (Boko Haram, Islamic State and IPOB) terrorists, (local, ethnic and communal) militias, cultists, rioters etc.

Events classified as having political reasons by ACLEAD do not only focus on those relating to election matters but also events of a single altercation where force is used by one or more groups toward a political end/cause.

16 of the deaths were recorded in connection to nine (out of 763) demonstrations recorded during the period. Four of the demonstrations which were related to the scarcity of naira notes earlier in the year led to the death of 10 persons with the most fatalities recorded in Aba, Aba South area of Abia State on February 17, 2023, where four persons, including a policeman, were killed.

According to the data, most of the demonstrations were peaceful as set out by the organisers. The entirety of the protests were carried out by various categories of people such as youths, civil servants, union members, political party members, students, farmers, women, persons with disabilities, lawyers, and religious worshippers.

19 deaths were recorded at all the 18 demonstrations that involved armed actors including the event of February 16, 2023, where a policeman shot sporadically to disperse residents who tried to resist the arrest of a suspect at Doubeli in Yola-South, Adamawa). A female relative of the suspect was killed in the process and another wounded. The police, according to media reports, claimed that the policeman was arrested.

Notable among events under this category are the killing of five Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) members by soldiers and policemen during a protest seeking the release of their leader, Nnamdi Kanu on March 31, 2023.

Only 83 fatalities were recorded from the 331 strategic developments recorded during the period with the fatality coming from two events. According to ACLEAD, strategic developments refer to incidents and activities of groups that are not recorded as ‘political violence’ or ‘demonstrations’ events, yet may trigger future events or contribute to political dynamics within and across states.

82 of the victims died when 82 ISWAP militants and their families who were fleeing from incursions by Nigerian troops at Damasak in Mobbar, Borno drowned and died between June 2^nd and 3^rd. The other person (chief bomb maker of the JAS faction of Boko Haram) died after his vehicle struck the improvised explosive device (IED) he had planted along Njumia and Arra (Gwoza, Borno) on March 27^th.

Bloody June

On month-by-month comparison, June had the highest number of fatalities with 942 persons killed in 343 events representing an average of 31.4 killings per day. This was distantly followed by November where 860 persons were killed (an average of 28.7 persons per day) in 423 events recorded in the month. It was closely followed by April which had 845 killings (an average of 28.2 per day) from 336 events. In February, 779 persons were killed in 390 events (representing an average of 27.8 persons per day) recorded. 721 persons were killed in the 411 events recorded in March representing an average of 23.3 killings per day.

Both January and August had the same number of killings –692 (22.3 killings per day)– while the months October (633), July (629), May (618), September (496) and December (212), representing 20.4, 20.3, 19.9, 16.5, and 26.5 killings per day respectively make up the rest of the list.

North still a hotbed of killings

Based on zonal categorisations, the North-East geopolitical zone had the highest number of killings with 3,271 deaths (four killings per event), the North-West zone recorded 2,073 killings with 2.1 killings per event recorded, the North-Central had 1,713 killings recorded with 2 killings recorded per event. The South-East (470), South-South (360) and South-West (232) with 0.9, 0.6, and 0.4 killings recorded per event.

It means that 7,057 killings were recorded in the North and 1,062 were recorded in the South, leading credence to analyses by many experts that the Northern part of the country remains a hotbed of killings in the country. Many of the events recorded in the North are linked to terrorists, militias, and rampaging herdsmen who have continued to lay siege on farmlands in the middle belt while sacking many helpless communities.

Per state-by-state analysis, the top five states with the least number of killings recorded are Jigawa (2), Gombe (3), Ekiti (5), Bayelsa (12) and Akwa-Ibom (17). The highest number of killings -2,695- were recorded in Borno State with 4.7 killings recorded each time there was an event of interest. In the top five category, Borno was followed by Zamfara (735), Niger (604), Benue (484) and Kaduna (446).

Others are Katsina (379), Plateau (378), Sokoto (334), Yobe (225), Taraba (211), Anambra (158), Imo (143), Kebbi (140), Rivers (136), Nasarawa (127), Bauchi (94), Delta (85), Enugu (76), Ogun (65), Edo (56), Cross River (54), Ebonyi (54), Lagos (54), Kogi (48), Osun (46), Adamawa (43), Abia (39), FCT (38), Kano (37), Kwara (34), Oyo (32) and Ondo (30).

Still on civilian killings

Of the 2,705 civilians killed during the year under review, 953 were killed in the North-Central, 780 were killed in the North-West, 460 in the North-East, 245 were killed in the South-East, 144 were killed in the South-South and 123 killed in the South-West.

Per state comparison, Benue State had the highest (397), followed by Plateau (309), Kaduna (243), Borno (233), Zamfara (202), Sokoto (176), Katsina (123), Taraba (120), Nassarawa (105) and Imo (95).

The states with the lowest number of recorded civilian killings are Jigawa (1), Gombe (2), Ekiti (3), Akwa Ibom (7) and Bayelsa (9).

Expert urges FG to tame civilian killings

While the killing of non-state actors can be justified under the umbrella of protecting the citizenry as provided for by the law of the land, many experts believe the wanton killing of unarmed civilians should be an aberration.

When presented with some of these findings, a security and intelligence consultant, Adams Abuh, berated political leaders who have continued to give direct and indirect backing to violence and manipulation in their quest for political relevance.

He also hinged the increase in the level of civilian killings in the country on the lack of adequate manpower, equipment, intelligence and training of security agents.

“We still have a lot to do in terms of the capacity of our fighting forces, equipment and the right training and the right motivation. We still have challenges in those areas and we need to work on them.

“The citizens seem to be disillusioned by the concept of political leadership. We have no option but to allow people at the lower rung of the society to gather around and defend our communities by providing intelligence and support to security forces. The truth of the matter is that, for the governments and individuals, it is not yet time for us to rest. It is time to step up our game. If not, we will have great challenges ahead,” he explained.

Giving an outlook on the security situation in the country, Abuh further said: “The challenge from the beginning has always been having the adequate number of personnel, training, equipment, armament, intelligence etc. but we have been able to step up our game along the line, unfortunately, the non-state actors also stepped up their game. In the part of the country that has been ravaged by their activities, particularly in the North-East and North-West, the life of the average citizen is nothing to write home about and the non-state actors used the opportunity to recruit them into their folds.

“You’ll find out that some of these non-state actors have infiltrated some parts of the South generally and wreaked havoc by kidnapping and attacking civilians in addition to the issues of IPOB and the Eastern Security Network in the South-East. We have been at it for a while and it appears that we are not getting out of the situation anytime soon.

“Political leaders are not helping matters in the ways they encourage violence and manipulation. All of these things encourage the killings that we are talking about. It may not be as intense as we used to have but we still cannot sleep and have our eyes closed.”

When asked how the government can reduce the killings of innocent civilians by security agencies like the one witnessed in early December in Plateau State, Abuh described the incident as unfortunate and one the military would investigate and ensure doesn’t repeat itself.

“That is the problem in this country and it feels like we don’t do research or whatever. Do you think the military will set out to kill its citizens the way it happened? There’s something called intelligence failure in every operation whether through the fault of the search, communication or implementation of the intelligence.

“It happens everywhere in the world and is not peculiar to Nigeria or something deliberate. What happened is unfortunate but it should be understood that the military would not go out and shoot down civilians. The military would have to go back to the drawing board to make sure that kind of thing doesn’t happen again,” he added. (Sunday Tribune)

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