Nigeria’s Human Rights Commission to conclude investigations of Baga killings before July.

The NHRC says its board members will be part of investigations into the alleged killing of about 200 people in Baga.

An independent investigation by Nigeria’s Human Rights Commission into the killing of scores of civilians in Baga will be ready within the next nine weeks, the commission has said.


The National Human Rights Commission, NHRC, stated this in Abuja at a media briefing after an emergency meeting of its governing council.

Conflicting reports have emanated about the civilian casualties that arose from a shootout mid April between Nigerian security officials and insurgents in Baga, Borno State.

Residents of the town told the state governor, Kashim Shettima, that they buried 185 people days after the incident and over 2,000 houses were destroyed. They said most of the victims died from the inferno and accused officers of the Joint Task Force of starting the fire. Their claims were corroborated by a Nigerian Senator from Borno, who said over a week after the incident and after his visit, that a total of 220 victims were eventually buried. The Human Rights Watch also released satellite imagery reports confirming that over 2,000 houses were burnt.

The Nigerian Government through the military and the National Emergency Management Agency, however, said the claims were exaggerated. The military said there were no mass graves and only six civilians died from the crisis while very few houses were burnt. NEMA on its part said it counted less than forty fresh graves at the grave yards and the number of houses in Baga was not up to a thousand.

The panel

The Chairman of the Governing Board of the NHRC, Chidi Odinkalu, who briefed journalists, explained that the panel to be set up for the investigation would be made up of board members.

Mr. Odinkalu said the panel is expected to submit its final report not later than the first week of July.

He explained that the emergency meeting was in response to “allegations arising from the recent incident involving the uniformed services and alleged insurgents”.

He also said the commission deemed it necessary to undertake an independent investigation into the Baga incident in exercise of its responsibilities under section 5 and 6 of the National Human Rights Commission Act, as amended.

He added that the investigation will seek to find out “the specific and general circumstances, actors and sequence of events that triggered the incident”.

He also said the panel will assess the state of humanitarian provisions for communities affected by crisis and also identify general or specific measures that may be taken to prevent a repeat of such incident.

The chairman also said the commission will “undertake broad consultations with relevant agencies in the executive and legislative arms of government at the Federal, State and Local Government levels, as well as the host or affected communities and the Civil Service.

Some of the members of the NHRC governing council that attended the briefing include, Ben Angwe, the Executive Secretary of the Commission, Eugenia Abu, Kayode Komolafe, Dave Ezeigwe, Ranti Daudu, Sa’udatu Mahdi, Ifeoma Chinwuba, and Ike Moses.