THE SHOOTING RANGE KILLINGS

SOME villages in Igbo Oloyin area, Ibadan, Oyo State, recently had their serenity shattered  by the activities of the soldiers of the 2 Mechanised Division, Ibadan.  Hails of bullets and shrapnel raised dust and destroyed life and property in the villages. The villagers thought they were in a war situation and it was when the dust settled that the survivors discovered that the gunshots were fired by  soldiers who were carrying out their regular shooting exercise.

SEVENTEEN villagers were not so lucky. They lost their lives in the confusion. They were inadvertently killed by a division of Nigerian Army, armed and maintained with taxpayers’ money. Though the attack was not deliberate, the soldiers’ action betrayed gross negligence and irresponsibility. Civilians should never have died during the soldiers’ shooting drills. But the victims were reportedly felled by stray bullets from the shooting range.

BUT why did the army use live bullets for a mere shooting exercise? If it is normal or customary to use live bullets, why did they not barricade or cordon off the shooting range? Were the soldiers just shooting at random without aiming at some targets? If there were targets, does it mean that they were missing the targets so much, that such a high number of casualties and destruction of property were recorded? We would, at least, want to believe that their targets did not include the villagers and their property. Was there any public announcement to sensitise and warn the villagers and other citizens to steer clear of the shooting range while the exercise lasted? Are the soldiers who participated in the drill so bad that they couldn’t hit assigned targets?

FROM all indications, it is obvious that the army was completely unmindful of its duty of care and caution. The General Officer Commanding (GOC) 2 Division of the Army, Major General A.B. Dambazau, was reported to have admitted that 17 people lost their lives during the unfortunate incident and apologised to the families of the victims. The casualties are probably more than the 17 reported and mere apologies that came after the hue and cry of the villagers are not sufficient atonement for the avoidable disaster that the exercise by the army unleashed on the villagers.

THE unwarranted killing of the innocent citizens by the soldiers should be thoroughly investigated and the culprits brought to book. Even where a charge of premeditated murder could not stick, they cannot escape that of manslaughter. It is expected that institutions and public officials saddled with sensitive assignments have got what it takes to handle such tasks in terms of skills, knowledge and powers of discretion. Where this assumption is not valid, then we have this manner of irreversible but avoidable error.

TO keep fit and be in a state of alert to perform its statutory function of protecting the country against external aggression, the army and indeed all the armed forces are required to carry out military exercise. However, in doing this, they are also expected to play according to the rules, exercise utmost discretion and professionalism to ensure that their actions are not counter-productive. Killing 17 people— and perhaps many more —in error during a shooting exercise is unacceptable under any guise. We condemn the killings and ask for compensation for the families of the victims who lost their lives as result of the army’s negligence.

IT is unfortunate that the army reacted to the villagers’ appeals to stop the killing of their kinsmen only after the villagers had cried to all Nigerians, though they had earlier made several representations to the army authorities. This smacks of criminal insensitivity. It is also insensitive of the army authorities to choose the occasion of their first visit to the villages after the disaster to accuse the villagers of encroaching on the army’s land. Mischief makers could interpret that to mean that the killing of the 17 villagers was actually the army’s own way of teaching the trespassers some lessons.

GENERAL Danbazau should keep his promise to the affected villages that the sad development will not repeat itself. The buffer zone to prevent bullets from escaping to the villages, which he said the army authorities had approved, should be built immediately. Though constructing a buffer zone now amounts to learning a lesson the hard way, the barricade should still be erected urgently to prevent incidents of bullets straying to the villages. Even if and when the buffer zone is built, a very sensitive and potentially dangerous military exercise, such as a shooting drill, should be heralded with sufficient sensitisation of and warning to members of the public to keep off the shooting range.

SINCE Nigeria cannot claim to have done anything worthwhile to improve the living standard and/or prolong the live expectancy of its citizens, it amounts to double jeopardy if  its institutions and officials are  seen to be deliberately cutting short the lives of innocent citizens through acts of culpable negligence.   

WHACKING WACKY WAKU

DOES the Senate President, David Mark, have dark secrets? He surely must have secrets; but are they dark? Senator Joseph Waku believes he knows enough of Senator Mark and the fact that he nurtures dark secrets, which he is threatening to expose.

WAKU is not alien to controversy. He has caused more than a stir as a Senator. But it is not known if he is suffering from “dehydration and hallucination” as Senator Mark declared. And one of Mark’s disciples added a short range whacking missile, saying that Waku was unfit to be addressed as a Senator, considering his antecedents.

INTERESTINGLY, there should not have been any reason for animosity between the two senators. They both come from Benue State. Waku is said to be a military lover for once granting an interview calling for the military to truncate Nigeria’s young and struggling democracy. Many Nigerians called him names then; some said he was wacky to call for military rule, that he was a military lover. Mark was a military man, who was highly acknowledged for his marksmanship. So Waku who prefers military rule to democracy should naturally love Mark, a retired general.

BUT it appears Waku has no respect for the office of the Senate President. He has never lost any opportunity to remind Mark that David can only be a friend to Jonathan and that he, Waku, is no Jonathan; he is Joseph. Indeed he has been more like a Goliath to Mark than a Joseph. He has never hidden his intention to whack Senator Mark, even when the Senate President is unmarked. Or what could have prompted Waku to allege that Mark was stalling the proceedings of the election petition tribunal hearing his (Mark’s) case when he should have been a sympathiser for being in the same party with the Senate President?

IT appears Waku has hit the raw nerve of a highly skilled marksman and should be ready to face the raw anger of a general. He should make good his threats to expose the dark secrets of Mark or else be prepared to be whacked and marked into political irrelevance for daring to be unnecessarily critical. But one thing is certain, Waku is a marked man.