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Jonathan’s Group Wants Buhari Prosecuted At ICC For 2011 Post-Election Violence

January 22, 2015

The group, which has retained an international lawyer, Goran Sluiter, stated, “As a fresh round of general elections approaches, recent provocative utterances and inciting statements laced with threat and intimidation by some political actors necessitate our renewed request for the International Court of Justice (ICC) to urgently launch criminal investigations in order to checkmate the reoccurrence of the political violence in the forthcoming 2015 general elections.”

A political group sympathetic to President Goodluck Jonathan is seeking to ambush Muhammadu Buhari, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), by advocating his prosecution for his alleged role in the post-election violence that rocked parts of northern Nigeria after the 2011 general elections. 

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Some members of the National Service Corps as well as other Nigerians lost their lives in riots that broke out after President Goodluck Jonathan was announced as the winner of the 2011 presidential election. 

Addressing a news conference in Abuja today, a group of northern political elements said that those responsible for the premeditated arson, killings and destruction of property in 2011 must be brought to justice.

The group, which has retained an international lawyer, Goran Sluiter, stated, “As a fresh round of general elections approaches, recent provocative utterances and inciting statements laced with threat and intimidation by some political actors necessitate our renewed request for the International Court of Justice (ICC) to urgently launch criminal investigations in order to checkmate the reoccurrence of the political violence in the forthcoming 2015 general elections.” 

According to the group, which included Umar Farouk as secretary general, Yunana Shibaku as publicity secretary, Baba Nagari as organizing secretary, and Ibrahim Baba as secretary for research and documentation, the recurrence of violence would be “totally unacceptable.”

The group accused Mr. Buhari, the then presidential candidate of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), of using Hausa language to direct crowds at his campaign rallies in different parts of the North, including Minna, Kaduna and Maiduguri, to protect their votes at all cost including killing and elimination of others.

Mr. Sluiter stated that, "like a nightmare, the spirits of victims of the 2011 post-election violence were resurrected at the venue of the conference to re-echo the calls for justice and immediate prosecution of those responsible for imposing tears, sorrow, blood, and violence on Nigerians in 2011." 

He maintained that the reason for the institution of a case at the International Criminal Court (ICC) was to compel the political class to imbibe the culture of winning electionsthrough the sanctity of the ballot box devoid of intimidation, threat, intolerance, hate messages, resorting to self-help and violence. “We remain deeply concerned about this gut-wrenching situation of people being intimidated against on account of exercising their political liberty, choices and preferences,” he said.

The group said that they had the video, audio and other documented evidence to support the prosecution of Mr. Buhari.