Tributes To Apo Squatters By Usama Dandare

      
      "Oh, no. It costs a lot more than your life. To murder innocent people?" "It costs everything you are.”
― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

      It's no longer news that Nigerian forces had turned to murderers overnight. Comfortably killing innocent citizens, destroying their properties, rendering several children orphans, their mothers widows, all in the name of fighting terrorism. Many episodes of government forces involved in civilian killings and all sort of crimes against humanity has been recorded in Nigeria without any attempt to prosecute the offenders by the government as in the case of Zaki-Biam, Odi, Bayelsa, Baga, Bama e.t.c, which left death several souls in hundreds.

       The latest of this practice was the massacre of self employed commercial tricycle drivers known as Keke riders in the capital city of Abuja on the 20th of September 2013 at Bamanga Tukur street in Apo legislative quarters leaving nine unarmed innocent youths death and about seventeen critically injured.

     This strange development broke out on a Friday morning after some uniform military forces stormed an uncompleted building where this innocent youths squat at night. They were given a five days quit notice to vacate the building but all of a sudden, they were unlawfully attacked and slaughtered by government forces even before the expiration of the quit notice.

    The security personnels claimed to have been engaged in a shot out by terrorist in that building and had earlier been informed by informants the presence of rebels occupying the building. What's left unresolved was if the forces were mislead or giving wrong information or target? Or may be they were giving wrong location and details.  
       This irritating action proved the unprofessional manner in which Nigerian forces operate and the untrained pattern in which they carried out their modus operandi. They quickly took action without proper investigations, they cowardly acted base on rumours and unprofessional report. What hanged on my thought was how government forces continuously denied been involved and pretend to have came under attack and acted on self-defence with unarmed innocent youths.

        It's only in Nigeria were security forces engaged a gun battle with unarmed civilians. It's totally false the earlier claims by security operatives that this innocent Keke riders are terrorists, they are simply poor day labourers who work in the city to make ends meet, and later squat in uncompleted buildings by paying the guards attached to those buildings.

     It was true that nothing associated with arms were found in the building which may attracted such retribution, the only items found in their possession were sleeping mats and cooking utensils belonging to the squatters as well as blood splattered on the walls of the building from the unusual attack on innocent civilians by the Nigerian military claiming to be fighting Boko Haram.

      It was indeed a most wicked massacre of nine innocent helpless Nigerians, whose only offence was being so poor and never got the chance to criminally enrich themselves. The motives behind this atrocity has still remained unknown and the faces behind this massacre still remained unidentified. What all of us knew is that, the attackers are genuine security personnels serving under the Federal Republic Of Nigeria. The National Assembly has setup a committee to investigate and come back with a report in few days, but i promise you will never hear the outcome of the final report by the committee, it will flourish as all other investigations before it.

       When will this kinds of barbaric acts end in Nigeria? In the last ten years only, unaccountable number of killings have been executed by security agents and if i can recalled, never has the government prosecuted or arrested any of the killers but always denied the doing such and the forces pretended to have acted on self-defence. Nothing was ever done to court marshal any security agent involved in civilian killing. Instead, they got promoted and rewarded for killing an innocent citizen. Human life in Nigeria has became meaningless, value for life and properties was never giving any priority to that of an ant. We are now living in a mini hell, what a nation.
    
        We are calling the attention of International Communities, Human right Organisations and all affected agencies. There are several humanitarian crisis, civilians deaths and casualties, violations of the international human right laws and serious crimes against humanity in Nigeria by security agents and the government is doing nothing to protect its citizens. The international communities should as a matter of urgency, intervene to save the lives of many poor Nigerians and the human right organisations should take legal actions in other to halt this ugly fashion.

        It's also time for Nigerians to set aside their individual differences being them ethnic or religion and unite to fight for their freedom. To sustain national growth and peaceful co-existence, all hands must be on desk to check mate the current sabotage planned against Nigeria's unity. Fear must be wash out from our minds and confront bad governance, we shall all be willing to sacrifice our lives for the betterment of our dear nation. For our generations yet unborn, we must revolt against any activity aimed at destabilising our national developments, we must chase evils out of leadership and replace them with patriotic minds who can set our country back on tracks.

        This poor Nigerians has been killed and they are gone, they will only be remembered by their families and friends but never by the Nigerian government. They will surely receive divine favours by their Creator, their faces will forever remains in the minds of their love ones. We prayed for a peaceful resting to their souls, we asked God's anger to befall their killers and undoubtedly, God will punish all behind their deaths, if not now, in the hereafter. For the lucky ones to have escaped death but critically injured that are currently receiving medications on hospital beds, we wished them quick recovery and prayed they will not take arms against the government to revenge the killings of their brothers. May the souls of the departed rest in peace. Ameen