The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Monday that deadly election-related and communal violence in northern Nigeria, following the April 2011 presidential poll, left over 800 people dead and displaced 65,000 others. In a statement obtained by PANA here, HRW said the victims were killed in three days of rioting in 12 northern states – Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Niger, Sokoto, Yobe, and Zamfara – and called on state and federal authorities to -promptly investigate and prosecute’ those who orchestrated and carried out these crimes-
‘The April elections were heralded as among the fairest in Nigeria’s history, but they also were among the bloodiest,’ the statement quoted Corinne Dufka, senior West Africa researcher at HRW. ‘The newly elected authorities should quickly build on the democratic gains from the elections by bringing to justice those who orchestrated these horrific crimes and addressing the root causes of the violence.’
The violence began with widespread protests by supporters of the main opposition candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, a northern Muslim from the Congress for Progressive Change, following the re-election of incumbent Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from the Niger Delta in the south, who was the candidate for the ruling People’s Democratic Party.
Those killed included 500 who died in the predominately-Christian towns and villages of southern Kaduna State, including Zonkwa, Matsirga, and Kafanchan.
HRW estimates that in northern Kaduna State, at least 180 people, and possibly more, were killed in the cities of Kaduna and Zaria and their surrounding suburbs.
The statement quoted a lecturer at a college on the outskirts of Zaria, who described an attack on the college thus: ‘When you see the mob, they were not in their senses. The students ran away but the mob pursued them into the staff quarters and they had nowhere to go. The mob beat them to death and hit them with machetes. Four Christian students and a Christian lecturer were killed.’
On May 11, President Jonathan appointed a new 22-member panel to investigate the causes and extent of the election violence, but the umbrella Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has rejected the chair of the panel, Sheikh Ahmed Lemu, over his views on Christians and his role in championing the divisive Islamic Sharia legal system in the north.
On the 2011 general elections, which were held 9, 16 and 26 April, HRW said while they were largely improved and better than previous ones, there were still incidents of violence, hijacking of ballot boxes by party thugs, and reports of police misconduct, particularly in southeast Nigeria and the volatile Niger Delta region.
It said violence linked to the party primaries and campaigns, and on the days of the elections, has left at least 165 people dead since November 2010.