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This report calls on the federal authorities to promptly and thoroughly review the status and outcome of police investigations into inter-communal violence, including alleged mass murder documented in this report, and promptly file criminal charges against those implicated, or publicly explain why charges have not been filed. The police should also create a special mass crimes unit, trained in investigating mass violence, and quickly deploy it to investigate incidents of communal violence in an impartial and thorough manner. Those implicated in crimes should be promptly prosecuted according to international fair trial standards. The National Assembly should pass legislation establishing clear jurisdiction for the federal attorney general to prosecute, in federal court, cases of mass violence, in order to better insulate cases of ethnic and sectarian violence from political interference at the state level. Human Rights Watch calls on Nigeria’s international and foreign partners, including the United Nations, United States, and United Kingdom, to publicly and privately call on Nigerian authorities to ensure that all perpetrators of mass killings are brought to justice. They should also use their expertise to offer targeted training and technical assistance to the mass crimes unit. The cycle of violence is not inevitable. Nigerian authorities can and should take urgent steps to ensure that the perpetrators of inter-communal violence are brought to justice and the victims are compensated for their enormous personal and material losses. “I want to believe that if they had done justice, maybe a repeat of this wouldn’t have come,” a man in Kafanchan, Kaduna State, said after the April 2011 violence there. “This time justice should be done.” Three Christian men, from the Berom ethnic group, stand next to a mass grave in Gwanfil village, Plateau State, where they buried 15 neighbors and family members—4 men, 3 women and 8 children—who were shot and killed in an attack on September 9, 2011. © 2012 Eric Guttschuss/Human Rights Watch 24 “Leave Everything to God” Human Rights Watch | December 2013 25
RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE GOVERNMENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA Estimated Number of People Killed in Inter-Communal Violence in Plateau and Kaduna States, Nigeria, January 2010 - November 2013 birnin gwari KEY: 500 killed 250 AREA OF DETAIL makarfi Kano kudan ikara sabon gari a Maiduguri Kaduna Jos giwa KADUNA A zaria a soba PLATEAU AU Abuja kubau u kaduna NIGERIA north igabi i Lagos Kadun a chikun Maraban Rido kauru u Port kaduna leree Harcourt 100 km south kajuru 50 zangon 10 kachiaa kataf Zango The circles represent Zonkwa the estimated death toll in kaura a Matsirga each local government area Capital city State capital NIGER K A T SINA Main town kagarko Town KADUN NA jaba a Kafanchan jema’a a sangaa BENIN jos north jos bassa s a Jo os east jos Bukuru south uru Dogo o Nahawa Kuru Karama riyom kanam barkin ladi mangu kanke bokkos pankshin n langtang a north mikang wase Shendam Yelwa qua’an pan shendam langtang south Information is based on Human Rights Watch interviews in communities affected by the violence, monitoring of Nigerian and foreign media reports of violence, lists of victims compiled by © 2013 Giulio Frigieri community leaders, and the report rt of the Kaduna State judicial commission of inquiry into the April 2011 violencee Human Rights Watch B PLA TEA U CA CAMEROON • Order the inspector-general of police and the federal minister of justice to provide a full account to the president, within 30 days, of investigations and prosecutions of inter-communal violence in Plateau and Kaduna states. This report should: — Cover the incidents of communal violence, including alleged mass murder, documented in this and other reports, including incidents and individual suspects identified in the reports of the various commissions of inquiry and administrative panels, community petitions submitted to federal authorities, and alleged sponsors of violence identified by witnesses and suspects in police statements. — Determine the status and outcome of the investigations and prosecutions of those cases, and identify the reasons that investigations and prosecutions were not conducted or completed. • Ensure that those responsible for perpetrating or sponsoring serious crimes in Plateau and Kaduna states, including alleged mass murder, are promptly and thoroughly investigated, prosecuted, and punished, according to international fair trial standards. • Take meaningful steps to begin to address root causes of inter-communal violence in Plateau and Kaduna states: — Sponsor legislation to end divisive government policies that fuel ethnic and sectarian tensions by expressly barring any federal, state, or local government institution from discriminating against “non-indigenes” with respect to any matter not directly related to traditional leadership institutions or other purely cultural matters. Launch a broad public education campaign throughout Nigeria focused on the rights that go with Nigerian citizenship and the need for an end to discrimination against non-indigenes. — Take meaningful steps to begin to allay fears of religious or ethnic minorities, including Christians living in predominately Muslim communities in northern Nigeria, by ensuring that their rights are protected, and that those responsible for sectarian or ethnic violence, including the April 2011 post-election attacks on Christians and their property in northern Nigeria, are promptly investigated, prosecuted, and punished, according to international fair trial standards. — Establish and publicize clear boundaries for international and regional cattle routes and grazing reserves, and establish alternative dispute resolution mechanisms for disputes between local farmers and pastoralists. TO THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY • Hold public hearings, including in the respective Senate and House of Representatives committees on police affairs, justice, and human rights, calling on the police to give account of the status and outcome of investigations into communal violence, including alleged mass murder, in Plateau and Kaduna states. • Enact legislation to domesticate the International Criminal Court’s Rome Statute, ratified by Nigeria in 2001, including criminalizing, under federal law, genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, consistent with Rome Statute definitions. • Enact legislation establishing that specific crimes, such as murder, committed during mass inter-communal violence are federal crimes, which can be prosecuted by the federal attorney general in Federal High Court. • Enact legislation to end divisive government policies that fuel ethnic and sectarian tensions by expressly barring any federal, state, or local government institution from discriminating against “non-indigenes” with respect to any matter not directly related to traditional leadership institutions or other purely cultural matters. 26 “Leave Everything to God” Human Rights Watch | December 2013 27
Page 1 and 2: H U M A N R I G H T S W A T C H “
Page 3 and 4: Copyright © 2013 Human Rights Watc
Page 5 and 6: Renewed Violence in Kaduna State, 2
Page 7 and 8: “Leave Everything to God” Accou
Page 9 and 10: On a sunny day in January 2010, in
Page 11 and 12: A mosque burned by mobs on April 18
Page 13 and 14: (above) A man stands in the rubble
Page 15 and 16: Photograph allegedly taken of a mob
Page 17: A mass grave for the victims of the
Page 21 and 22: RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE PLATEAU STAT
Page 23 and 24: financial incentives or promise any
Page 25 and 26: Non-indigenes are often denied acce
Page 27 and 28: “peculiar attitudes” and will
Page 29 and 30: The conflict over indigene rights h
Page 31 and 32: II. Inter-Communal Violence in Plat
Page 33 and 34: curfew, which was widely ignored, a
Page 35 and 36: speech to the Nigerian Senate in Oc
Page 37 and 38: the police to investigate them. 78
Page 39 and 40: In the pre-dawn hours of January 19
Page 41 and 42: Satellite image of Kuru Karama 21 m
Page 43 and 44: communities. 102 When the Muslim le
Page 45 and 46: didn’t want to see the children [
Page 47 and 48: ut “[s]he was not able to reach m
Page 49 and 50: On January 20, some of the Muslim r
Page 51 and 52: Sabon Gidan Kanar Witnesses said th
Page 53 and 54: eeders association in Plateau State
Page 55 and 56: The March 2010 Dogo Nahawa Massacre
Page 57 and 58: mass grave: 16 men, 16 women, and 3
Page 59 and 60: man who survived the attack told Hu
Page 61 and 62: finish.” He continued, “Fightin
Page 63 and 64: IV. Impunity for the 2010-2013 Viol
Page 65 and 66: charge them with. Federal prosecuto
Page 67 and 68: moving about freely. One of the wit
Page 69 and 70:
know us. They are still there in th
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provided Human Rights Watch with in
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Kafanchan Special Judicial Tribunal
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News of the Zango massacre sparked
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2000 “Sharia Riots” In February
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killed scores of people before even
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government, found that 938 people i
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campus chanting pro-Buhari slogans
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cutlasses, and sticks, and they cam
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The police escorted the convoy of M
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men divided the Muslim men and wome
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Another Muslim man, whose 19-year-o
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Violence in Kafanchan The town of K
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gave a free rein to the Muslims—t
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The man said he later went back to
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the house. There were 10 men and 12
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free.” 405 Communal bloodletting
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identified. The team arrested a num
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about living their normal lives,”
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VIII. The Legal Framework Internati
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houses, shops, or places of worship
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The Nigeria Police Force has also b
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IX. The Anatomy of Impunity The fai
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arrest those they find at the scene
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advice, they refused to do that; [w
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more likely to know each other—an
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justice. For example, a Hausa woman
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villages in Plateau State, and from
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emaining cases. 523 The federal tri
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We asked the people who have been a
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Plateau State Attorney General Edwa
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violence to book,” he told Human
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Political Compromises That Reinforc
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who set their homes on fire, those
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Plateau and Kaduna—two states in
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