The Nigerian government has failed to ensure accountability after police used deadly force to disperse mass 2024 demonstrations against soaring living costs, Amnesty International has said on the first anniversary of the protests.
In a statement on Friday, the human rights group said police in Nigeria “bizarrely continue to deny strong allegations of extrajudicial execution, torture and unlawful arrests of the protesters”.
An Amnesty investigation found that at least 24 people were killed when police opened fire on the protests, which erupted in August of last year under the slogan #EndBadGovernanceInNigeria.
Demonstrators took to the streets across the country in anger about soaring fuel prices and inflation, spurred by government reforms aimed at reviving the economy.
“A year on, despite the gravity of these human rights violations, not a single member of the security forces has been prosecuted, as accountability remains elusive for the 24 peaceful protesters killed in Kano, Jigawa, Katsina, Borno, Niger and Kaduna states,” Isa Sanusi, director of Amnesty International Nigeria, said in Friday’s statement.
“Those behind these atrocities must be held to account.”
A spokesman for Nigeria’s Ministry of Justice did not respond to a request for comment from the AFP news agency.
Amnesty said that in all the killings, protesters were shot by police who fired live ammunition “at close range, often at the head or torso, suggesting that officers were shooting to kill”.
“The Nigerian authorities are yet to take appropriate and effective measures to respect, protect, promote and fulfil the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, including by ending the killing, intimidation and harassment of protesters, arbitrary arrests and detention, and mass surveillance, especially in the context of protests,” Sanusi said.
The rights group also condemned what it described as “sham trials” for the hundreds of protesters who were arrested on a variety of alleged offences.
Charges include “‘levy[ing] war against the state in order to intimidate or overawe the president’” as well as “‘using WhatsApp group chats,’ ‘inciting to mutiny,’ “chanting ‘Tinubu must go’, calling on the military to take over government from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu” and “intent to destabilize Nigeria”, according to Amnesty.
Tinubu’s reforms – including floating the naira currency and ending a costly fuel subsidy – have been supported as long overdue by economists, but led to the cost of living to spike in the country.
Though no one has been tried for the deaths, the Nigerian government has been forced at times to step back from its prosecutions of protesters.
In November, dozens of youths, many of them children, appeared in court frail and hungry, sparking outcry over their treatment in jail. Tinubu later ordered their release.
But some trials are still under way for the roughly 700 people arrested.
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