It has been a bad month for the Nigerian military. Well, bad if one assumes that the killing of innocent citizens would cause men of the Nigerian military to lose sleep, and perhaps face punishment.

First, there was that ill-fated bombing of an IDP camp in Rann, which left close to 100 persons dead, and about two hundred injured. We were told that the bombing was a mistake, as men of the Nigerian Air force had received intelligence that the location of the IDP camp was housing terrorists. Many analysts have raised question over this “mistake”. One, if terrorists were at a tiny section of a community, is airstrike the best tactical option to employ? Wouldn’t a foot assault been better, to avoid serious collateral damage? Another question is, even if there was such an “intelligence” report, wouldn’t a reconnaissance trip have shown that the place is an IDP camp? If it was truly a mistake, then it was a very costly and stupid one to make.

Secondly, while the military was busy selling the narrative that the Rann bombing was a mistake, facts emerged that in fact, the Rann bombing was not the first time members of the Nigerian military had “mistakenly” killed IDPs. It was revealed that earlier, about 30 Internally Displaced Persons from the Gamboru Ngala camp were killed by a group of soldiers who opened fire on them while they were fetching firewood (firewood that they had been asked to go and fetch by another group of soldiers). The story is that the soldiers who killed the IDPs mistook them for terrorists! One would have thought that you do not just set upon a people, and immediately open fire on them, except if they had displayed hostility. Again, the excuse tendered failed to hold water.

It is difficult to understand why these trained military personnel keep making such sloppy mistakes that have led to the death of about 125 IDPs. If these mistakes are to continue, who is to say how many IDPs would be killed by the people who should be protecting them?

And then on Friday, in Port Harcourt, unarmed men and women of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) who were matching in solidarity with the new US President, Donald John Trump, were accosted by men of the Nigerian military, who opened fire on them, killing over 22 persons!

Now, if the killing of the IDPs was a mistake, the murder of the IPOB protesters cannot be explained away as a mistake as it has become almost a recurrent pattern for them to be shot at anytime they as much as gather together. No proper justification for this has been provided, and no realistic Nigerian expect that any will be provided.

It is important to point out that there were marches in the US against Trump during the same period as the IPOB solidarity march. Yet there was no report of the military opening fire on a group of unarmed civilians. That is the difference between a country where the lives of its citizens are valued, and one in which the...

Credit: http://ikengachronicles.com/editorial-killing-innocent-nigerians-nigerian-militarys-new-focus/

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it's not news. since I was born till today, they just love killing innocents.

Stop making it look like Igbos are the target. They've been doing it for years.