same predictable result, unless handled differently from the inexplicable bravado and laches that doomed Nigeria in the previous suits preferred against its officials in the United States.
The factual case against the defendants is convincing. All Nigerians know of the widespread beatings and slaughter of Igbos by elements of Nigerian security forces for merely and peacefully exercising their fundamental human right to protest marginalization and urge a new political dispensation. Indeed, beyond Nigeria, Amnesty International and other credible foreign sources have confirmed those killings and torture; and to be sure – their reports will be deemed probative and admissible under standards of evidence long established in US federal courts in cases of this nature. Plus, plaintiffs are all on standby in the United States to air their tearful testimonies in open court. It even makes it worse that the Nigerian army is reported to be denying and covering up an atrocity that was so open and notorious.
It doesn’t make it any better that the Nigerian government – so far – appears to have condoned the wanton killings by failing to publicly discipline the officers that pulled the trigger or the commanders that gave the order. It’s even worse that President Buhari, upon his return from vacation, reportedly ordered his troops to renew their crackdown on Igbo protesters. That VP Osibanjo gave no such orders when Buhari was away is noticeably demonstrative of the widespread notion that Buhari – a Fulani core Muslim – has profiled the Christian Igbos for persecution because of their ethnicity, their love of freedom, and the perception that they did not vote for him in the 2015 election that saw him to power.
At present, the savage mentality that is directed against Igbos in Nigeria of this era is widespread and underscored by the notorious threat to expel or destroy millions of Igbos and seize their properties in the Muslim northern states of Nigeria if they refused to surrender their right to reside and work peacefully in that part of the country. And the federal, state, and local governments appear as spectators to the looming genocide – a spectacle that is not lost on a wary international community; and which might as yet make Nigeria a ‘state actor’ in the ultimate fallouts. Such fallouts will surely raise the specter of an International Criminal Court intervention that may engulf the present crop of Nigerian leadership at the very top.
The Nigerian defendants are mistaken if they believe they can defend from the safe confines of Nigeria. If the case goes to trial, they will be required – under penalty of default or even contempt – to appear in a United States court to testify under oath and dangerously probing cross-examination that will dwell on the details of the Igbo killings and the complicity of other unnamed Nigerian officials, which shall include whether they received their orders from the presidential levels of security leadership to use lethal force on unarmed protesters. This evidence could be used in a sequel criminal prosecution before the International Criminal Court or a special court of the likes employed in the prosecution and conviction of Chad’s former dictator, Hissene Habre in Senegal. The State governors – of Abia and Anambra – where these killings largely occurred will also be ensnared by virtue of being the ‘chief security officers’ of their States. Those two governors are also listed as defendants.
If the defendants refuse to appear, default judgments will be entered against them, in addition to the prospects of undefended huge damage awards that will run in the millions of dollars. The ultimate loser – diplomatically and financially – will be the Nigerian and State governments that presumably control the officials who acted under color of state law when the Igbo killings occurred. In the end, it may snowball to the government of Nigeria being listed as a state sponsor of terrorism in the same manner as was done with Sudan, etc. In the interim and despite the continuing menace of Boko Haram, the United Nations Security Council (or the US – under the Leahy Act) could vote an arms embargo on Nigeria to prevent the diversion of military weapons that could be geared to perpetrating more official violence against the Igbo people.
Christian lobby groups in the United States were largely responsible for making Sudan a pariah state, which culminated in the creation of South Sudan through a referendum organized and supervised by the United Nations. Like Nigeria, Sudan also fancied itself indissoluble just because its Constitution said so. That same political dynamic will be at work against Nigeria if the TVPA/ATCA litigation is not resolved amicably before Nigeria’s dirty linen is exposed at trial in an open United States courtroom for the entire world to see.
Better yet, there’s a third way – a time honored window of opportunity the defendants can exploit to end the case early and avoid the severe rigors of a foreign trial. US trial lawyers and the courts within which they operate are known to have a proclivity for encouraging any alternative dispute resolution path that brings closure through a pre-trial fair settlement of suits. Though this suit has progressed to a point of some disadvantage to the defendants, it’s not too late for them to begin now to seek out plaintiffs’ lawyers and start talking to them.
Credit: The Whistler
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