The unfinished building where security forces
killed at least seven squatters Friday, September 20, in the Apo neighbourhood
of Abuja, belongs to Mrs. Adunni Oluwole Salisu, believed to be the sister to
former President Olusegun Obasanjo, a PREMIUM TIMES investigation has revealed.
Documents from the Abuja Geographical
Information Systems (AGIS) shows that the property, located at No. 8 Bamanga
Tukur Street, Gudu District, near the Gudu cemetery, belongs to Mrs. Salisu.
Ownership details of property OG247326, point
unmistakably to Mrs. Salisu’s land rights, but neither her, nor the former
president, could be reached for comment; although authoritative family sources
confirmed the ownership and the relationship.
The Gudu killings have pitched the Nigerian
human rights community against anti-terrorist campaigners in a bitter debate
about the threshold of caution that security forces on anti-terror missions
ought to uphold where the insurgency is generally armed, and have demonstrated
maximum capability for ruthless murder and violence.
Soldiers and SSS officials, spurred by
intelligence reports that a sleeper cell of Boko Haram insurgents,
embedded in the Gudu neighbourhood, were about to strike again in Abuja,
pre-emtorily stormed the building inhabited by squatters, mostly tricycles
drivers, petty traders and artisans, in the early hours of Friday, killing at
least seven and leaving several injured.
A spokesman for the tricycle association
angrily lambasted security officials on Channels TV, in an interview
Monday, claiming that “because two or three Boko Haram people were in the
building offers no excuse to kill innocent people.”
Security forces have been in anxious alert
after the Boko Haram insurgents scored a string of deadly success in missions
that targeted This Day newspaper office, the United Nations office, the Force
Headquarters of the Nigeria Police, and the Anti-Robbery Squad headquarters of the
Police- all in Abuja. The sect has also visited punishing attacks on
neighbourhood churches killing scores of worshipers.
PREMIUM TIMES gathered, within intelligence
sources, Tuesday, that a mood of panic alert in the security community was what
precipitated the Apo killings also thought to be “quite frankly an operational
failure,” underscoring, top operatives disclosed to PREMIUM TIMES, “the
imperative for deeper and specialized human rights training for agents on
anti-insurgency mission.”
Residents claim a representative of the owner
of the house had given the squatters a week notice to vacate the property.
The squatters were killed before the
expiration of the notice. Most of the dead and wounded were shot in the back,
execution style.
It is not known yet whether Mr. Obasanjo
played any role in that tragic eviction operation.
Meanwhile, multiple security sources have told
this paper that the SSS had released most of the squatters arrested at the
building after it was unable to link them to any terrorist activities.
News of the release of the squatters came just
as the Nigerian Senate, the Police and the National Human Rights Commission,
NHRC, promised to investigate the killings.
Chairman of the NHRC, Chidi Odinkalu, told
PREMIUM TIMES it was essential to investigate and verify the death of the
squatters.
“The facts of this matter should be
dispassionately verified,” Mr. Odinkalu said. “That is an obligation everybody
must take seriously.”
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