The eight were killed when security personnel opened fire on them. They were later found to be commercial motorcycle (Okada) riders who were taking refuge in the uncompleted building as a result of skyrocketing house rent costs in the capital city.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) court has imposed a fine of $3.3mn on Nigeria over the September 2013 extra-judicial killing of eight citizens in the Apo District of Abuja, Federal Capital Territory, PRNigeria reports.
The eight were killed when security personnel opened fire on them. They were later found to be commercial motorcycle (Okada) riders who were taking refuge in the uncompleted building as a result of skyrocketing house rent costs in the capital city.
Killed were Nura Abdullahi , Ashiru Musa, AbdullahiManmman, Buhari Ibrahim, Suleiman Ibrahim, Ahmadu Musa, Nasir Adamu and Musa Yobe.
The regional court ordered Nigeria to pay a compensatory damage of $200,000 to each family of the citizens killed, and $150,000 to each of thoseinjured in the onslaught by a combined team of soldiers and operatives of the Department of State Security Service (DSS) during a raid of the building.
Eleven others: Muttaka Abubakar, Sani Abdulrahman, Nuhu Ibrahim, Ibrahim Mohammed, Ibrahim Aliyu and Yahaya Bello, Abubakar Auwal, Yusuf Abubakar, Ibrahim Bala, Murtala Salihu and Sanni Usman,received various degrees of injuries in the incident.
The Incorporated Trustees of Fiscal and Civil Right Enlightment Foundation, a non-governmental organisation, had on behalf of the deceased dragged Nigeria, the Army and Department of State Security Services before the court to challenge the legality of the killing of the commercial motorcyclists and the injury of others who were armless when the security men invaded their apartment.
In the judgement of the ECOWAS Court, which wasdelivered by presiding Justice Friday Chijioke Nwoke, Nigeria was found liable of the brutal killing of defenceless citizens, contrary to the provisions of local and international laws on the fundamental rights of citizens to life.
The panel of three Justices headed by Justice Nwokecondemned the killing as barbaric, illegal and unconstitutional and a breach of the fundamental rights of the deceased to life.
The court rejected the plea by Nigeria that its security personnel killed the deceased in attempt to defend themselves adding that there was no iota of evidence that any of the deceased carried cutlasses or guns against the security men when they invaded the house.
Justice Nwoke said that the action of the security personnel constituted a serious abuse of power and misuse of firearms against innocent citizens, because there was no conflict that should have warranted opening fire on the defenceless citizens.
He said: “There is no evidence of any attempt that the deceased and the survivals attempted to harm the security personnel. There is no evidence of recovered guns. There is no evidence of bullet or is pellets recovered from the deceased and tendered before this court to prove the claim that the Nigerian security personnel acted in self-defence when they storm the house of the deceased.
"Rather the evidence abounds that the victims were unharmed while the security personnel were the one that open fire on the innocent and the defencelesscitizens.”
Justice Nwoke further said that the burden of proof that the security personnel acted in self-defence lay on the head of the defendants. He added that in this instance, since the burden was not proved in anyway, the court had no difficulty in arriving at a conclusion that the claim was baseless.
He noted that reasonableness suggests that an officer of any sort must act without passion or prejudice in a non-conflict zone. Consideration, he said, should have been made with regard to persons who might have occupied the house in error and who were not among the suspected terrorists being looked for by the security personnel.
