According to Bloomberg Television, the #EndBadGovernance protests claimed 13 lives on the second day, being August 2, 2024. But the fatality that took the attention of all was the killing of a 16-year-old Ismail Mohammed in Samaru Zaria, Kaduna State, by soldiers despatched to quench a riotous situation in the university town.

A video surfaced on the web showing a soldier aiming his rifle at a prostrate figure of an obviously wounded youth and releasing a very loud shot. However, eyewitnesses who narrated the incident that led to Mohammed’s killing showed that soldiers allegedly shot at the door, leading to the death of the victim behind the closed door.

The Nigerian Army, in a swift reaction, admitted that Mohammed met his death when soldiers fired “warning shots” to disperse hoodlums who had capitalised on the #EndBadGovernance protest to loot and destroy property. The Army, according to its spokesman, Major General Onyema Nwachukwu, has arrested the suspect pending investigation into the incident.

It Is surprising that the Army would pronounce the possible cause of death even before commencing its own investigation, perhaps in a hurried effort to blunt the perception that its troops might have acted unprofessionally.

The three bullet holes shown on video in a News Central Television report in the home of the deceased indicated that the troops might have shot directly at the door. Warning shots are directed at the skies. What the military calls “warning shots” are usually shooting sprees that our soldiers regularly engage in even during civil crises like protests.

We saw it in the Lekki Toll Gate shootings of October 2020. We see it routinely in videos that emanate from military invasions of communities in search of suspected hoodlums. Soldiers are seen displaying a disturbing level of trigger-happiness that is antithetical to the claims of adherence to professional “rules of engagement” by military image makers.

The fact that the “investigations” by the military are neither transparent nor accountable to the public renders them of no value towards ensuring that professionalism is upheld and justice adequately served.

We insist, once again, that protests, even riotous ones, are within the purview of police function. That is why we have the Mobile section of the Nigeria Police which is otherwise called “anti-riot police”. Even the Federal Military Government’s initial reaction to the declaration of Biafra by Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu in 1967 was called “police action” until it developed into a civil war.

Soldiers are trained to kill. The impulsive penchant by the government to mobilise them to do police work is condemnable and must be stopped. Soldiers and their commanders must be made more accountable to curb their excesses.

We console the families of innocent citizens killed through reckless military deployments. These deaths must not be in vain. (Vanguard Editorial)

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