President of the Nigerian Senate, David Mark has mandated the Senate Committee on Defence, Police, National Security and Intelligence to investigate the alleged killing of civilians in Baga, Borno State during a clash between members of the Boko Haram Islamist sect and men of the Joint Military task Force (JTF).
Mark issued the order after Senator Maina Lawan (ANPP-Borno) raised a point of order on the tragedy, which resulted in the death of more than 180 people and destruction of hundreds of houses.
“The number of people who are being named to have been killed regardless of who did it is totally unacceptable; that number is just too much,” Mark said.
“Sen. Magoro and Salihu will say fighting in built-up area is a very difficult operation. That notwithstanding, there must be standard rules of engagement and those rules of engagement will not include mass killings or extra judicial killing of any form.
“I do not want any debate on it because there is already a committee that has been set up by the Executive to probe it. But we in the Legislature will set up a committee to investigate the facts and whether the reports we got are correct or not.”
He urged “Nigerians who know the facts” to appear before this committee, and gave the joint committee two weeks to present its findings to the upper chambers.
Speaking earlier, Sen. Lawan decried the “outrageous” level of destruction and the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the town, and then demanded “full-scale investigations” into the incident.
“My zone, the Borno North Senatorial district is today a no-go area for normal operations of government, be it business or social,” he lamented.
“In particular, I wish to draw attention to several national dailies in the last three or four days and very wide an extensive coverage of all the international electronic media. These news items are largely true and still coming closer home, my hometown of Baga is today in total ruins with 180 to 200 human lives lost and numerous others unaccounted for.”
Lawan said more than 2,000 homes were destroyed as well as 62 cars and 284 motor cycles and tonnes of food.
“At this stage, I would not want to be enmeshed in the blame game on whether it is the multinational joint task force or the JTF or the insurgents that carried out the atrocities.
“But it appears the killings bear the hallmark of Odi (killings). Whoever did it, that level of atrocity is outrageous, unacceptable and condemnable in any civilised society, even in societies at war.”
