The Counter-Insurgence Operations of the Joint Task Force and Human Rights Abuses in Northern Nigeria, 2011?2013

Abstract

Nigeria has witnessed sustained and often co-ordinated attacks on innocent lives, valuable properties, government institutions, etc. by the Boko Haram sect since 2009. The iconoclastic and subversive activities of the sect has led to the deployment of the special Joint Task Force (JTF) comprising the military, police and intelligence personnel by the Nigerian government. Chapter Four of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, other laws established under it and several binding international human rights treaties clearly delineate the fundamental rights of the citizens. Ironically, these rights have come under severe abuse by members of the JTF drafted to restore public order in the terror-riddled states in northern Nigeria. This paper, therefore, analyzes the grossly under-reported role of the JTF, whose counter-insurgence operation in the preservation of national security largely contravenes the fundamental human rights of the citizens. Utilizing the Marxist theory of the state, the paper establishes that the counter-insurgence operation of the JTF is implicated in the wanton abuse of human rights in northern Nigeria. It concludes that the incidence of human rights violation in the region can only be eradicated through sustained rights advocacy and good governance.

DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2014.v4n5p67