by Nigerian News24 Correspondents
Amnesty International has claimed it holds concrete evidence, including names and addresses, of individuals allegedly killed extrajudicially by Nigerian military personnel in the South-East region.
Speaking on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief on Friday, the organisation’s Nigeria Country Director, Isa Sanusi, said Amnesty has been in contact with victims’ families and is ready to present its findings.
“We have our evidence and we are very glad to present them. We are always in touch with families of victims and believe there is a need for soul-searching. Let us sit down, look at those cases, find out who did what and when, and ensure justice for the victims,” Sanusi stated.
In its latest report titled “A Decade of Impunity: Attacks and Unlawful Killings in Southeast Nigeria”, Amnesty accused the Nigerian police, military, regional security outfit Ebube Agu, and non-state actors of widespread human rights violations in the zone. The report documents more than 1,844 deaths between January 2021 and June 2023, citing cases of torture, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests, and other abuses.
However, the Director of Defence Media Operations, Major General Markus Kangye, rejected the allegations, insisting the military does not engage in extrajudicial killings. He maintained that security operations in the South-East have instead weakened the capacity of criminal groups.
Sanusi dismissed the Defence Headquarters’ claim that Amnesty is targeting the military, stressing that the report also highlighted instances where soldiers were killed or attacked.
“It is not about consistency in condemning the military; what we are doing is the honest thing—saying that we have cases,” he said.
According to him, many of the alleged extrajudicial killings occurred during operations in areas suspected of sheltering members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) or its armed wing, the Eastern Security Network (ESN). In some instances, victims were allegedly taken from their homes and never seen again.
Sanusi revealed that Amnesty interviewed about 100 people—95 of them face-to-face in the South-East—before publishing its findings. He added that the group wrote to the military seeking a response to the allegations but received none.
He stressed that Amnesty has no agenda against the armed forces, noting that its records also implicate the police and Ebube Agu, which he said had become “a tool of abuse” despite being established by state governors to curb insecurity.