Killings by Nigerian soldiers, police still unpunished

Source Human Rights Watch

The Nigerian government has not brought a single prosecution or even begun investigations a year after Nigerian policemen and soldiers killed more than 130 civilians in responding to deadly sectarian clashes in the central Nigerian city of Jos, Human Rights Watch said today. The government should investigate and prosecute members of the security forces implicated in these and a series of subsequent abuses, Human Rights Watch said. In the year since the violence in Jos, Nigerian security forces have been implicated in other abuses and incidents of extrajudicial killings without facing any official sanction. In July 2009 the police in northern Nigeria brazenly executed the leader of a militant Islamist group in police custody. In April, police, politicians, and election officials were implicated in election violence and vote-rigging in Ekiti State, in southwest Nigeria.