By CHARLES IWUOHA

Frontline human rights organisation, International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) has claimed that over 100,000 Nigerians lost their lives in the hands of security agencies within the past eight years.

According to the group, the most affected states are Imo, Anambra, Enugu, Bayelsa, Rivers, Delta, Kaduna, Abia, Borno, Ebonyi, Edo, Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Plateau, Taraba, Niger, Yobe, Bauchi, Adamawa, among others.

The group claimed the figure was obtained through its review of activities of security agencies covering the period between August 2015 to December 2023.

It said the killings would have been prevented if the massively deployed security forces had heeded several early warnings and acted securely and unbiased.

This was contained in a statement made available to News Express on Thursday.

The statement was signed by Emeka Umeagbalasi, Intersociety Board Chairman, Chidinma Udegbunam, Head, Campaign and Publicity and Obianuju Joy Igboeli, Head, Civil Liberties and Rule of Law.

The group claimed that “over 100,000 unarmed and defenceless citizens of Nigeria have died directly or indirectly outside the law in the hands of the Nigerian security forces.

It said the deaths were recorded in 28 major operations “during which tens of thousands were deadly tortured and secretly held without fair and evidence-based trial.”

Intersociety added that several thousands of others permanently disappeared during custodial abductions and incarcerations.

“The ‘indirect deaths’ included those that died from torture and gunshot injuries or those abducted and disappeared; and hunger, starvations and deprivations visited upon their dependants occasioned by their absence.

“Included in this category are victims of the Fulani herdsmen and Jihadist Bandits’ massacre.

“Shockingly, about 70% of the direct dead, tortured, abducted and disappeared victims are found to have belonged to members of the South-East, the South-South and the Old Middle-Belt Christians and non-Muslim others.

“The remaining 30% represented the unarmed and defenceless Muslim victims killed or maimed during the Nigerian security forces’ crude counter-insurgency operations in Muslim parts of the North-East States of Borno, Yobe, Bauchi and Adamawa, severally captured in the Amnesty International reports,” it stated.

The group claimed that Nigerian security forces were neutrality and professionalism challenged “having brutally been radicalised, biased and bastardised, particularly since July 2015.”

The rights group advocated that the security forces be “urgently restructured and their personnel and bosses comprehensively retrained and de-radicalized.”

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