International Media Campaign on Human Rights Abuses and Extra-Judicial Killings in the Ongoing Nigerian Military’s Counter-Insurgency: The Victor, the Victim and the Abused

Abstract

The  unsettled  and  subjective  nature  of  what  constitute  human  rights abuse  and  extra-judicial  killing  affords  most  western  nations  and international  media  to  misconstrue  security-related  matters  in  most developing  world.  More  problematic  is  how  such  misconstrued  reality on  the  ground  and  publicity  inform  policy  decisions  of  these  nation, thereby,  undermining  military  counterinsurgency  operations  in  the North  East.  In  particular,  the  consistent  labelling  of  most  Nigeria’s military  counter-insurgency  operations  in  the  North  East  as constituting  human  rights  abuse  or  extra-judicial  killing  had  denied 50 Nigeria  foreign  assistance  and  collaborations  against  the  insurgency. Regrettably,  this situation had  left the military  starved  of weapons  and equipment  which  these  Western  countries  refused  to  sell  to  Nigeria.  Unfortunately,  this  is  yet  to  receive  adequate  academic  attention. Hence,  this  paper  attempts  to  examine  the  strategic  effects  of continued  labeling  of  the  Nigerian  Military  as  human  rights  violators on  Nigeria’s  ongoing  COIN  operations.  This  paper  therefore  contends that  the  real  abused  in  the  on-going  Nigeria’s  counterinsurgency operations  are  the  Nigerian  military  personnel,  the  people  and  the Nigerian  state  that  had  had  to  continually  suffer  repeated  terroristic attacks  in the  hands  of terrorists.