Democratic Socialist Movement

For Struggle, Solidarity and Socialism in Nigeria

By - DSM

NIGER: DEATH OF 37 IN NSCDC CUSTODY IS MURDER

WE CALL FOR JUSTICE AND CHANGE IN THE SYSTEM THAT PRODUCES MASS PROVERTY AND CRIMINALISES IT

The Youth Rights Campaign (YRC) condemns, in the strongest terms, the killing of 37 young people, many of them minors, in the custody of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Niger State Command. This is not an accident, an “outbreak,” or a tragic misfortune. It is an extrajudicial killing, and those behind it must never be allowed to escape justice.

WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR

Governor Umaru Bago has said that on arriving at the facility he saw bodies on the floor and outside, with blood in their noses and mouths, burns, bruises and cuts. Survivors say detainees were packed into a cell that started with about 17 people and swelled to nearly 48, despite their protests that the room was too small. One survivor says the door was locked and an unidentified substance, smelling like perfume, was sprayed inside, after which people began to collapse. A witness alleges the detainees were beaten. A relative of one victim says officers demanded ₦500,000 for his brother’s release and that he saw detainees beaten with sticks and iron.

The NSCDC first pointed to a suspected disease outbreak, then retreated to say the cause of death is not established. Bodies with burns and cuts do not die of an “outbreak.” We will not accept a cover story dressed up as a medical mystery.

THE CRIMES THAT PRECEDED THE KILLING

Even before the cause of death is formally determined, the NSCDC stands accused of multiple violations of the law:

  1. Unlawful prolonged detention. Section 35(4) and (5) of the 1999 Constitution and the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) 2015 set strict limits on how long a suspect may be held without being brought before a court. Detention beyond those limits is illegal.
  2. Violation of the rights of minors. The Child’s Rights Act 2003, and Niger State’s equivalent law, require that children in conflict with the law be protected, not caged with adults in an overcrowded cell. Children belong in school and in the care of the state, not in a cell.
  3. Violation of the presumption of innocence. Section 36(5) of the Constitution presumes every suspect innocent until proven guilty by a court. Even if these young people were caught mining illegally, as one witness conceded, no law authorises anyone to beat them, punish them, or kill them. No security agency is a court.
  4. Torture. The Anti-Torture Act 2017, Section 34 of the Constitution and the UN Convention Against Torture, to which Nigeria is a party, prohibit torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Beatings, overcrowding and the reported spraying of an irritant into a locked cell are exactly that.
  5. Violation of the right to life, guaranteed by Section 33 of the Constitution.

WHO PUT THESE CHILDREN IN THE MINES?

The YRC refuses to treat this as a story about “illegal miners” alone.

Why were children and teenagers in mining pits instead of classrooms? This is because the ruling class, and the neoliberal APC regimes in Niger State and at the federal level, have treated education as a privilege for the few, not a right for all. Years of underfunding of public education, the commercialisation of schooling, the removal of subsidies and the sale of public assets have produced mass poverty by design. Poverty is weaponized: it drives children into the most dangerous labour, and it also serves the interests of those who profit from it.

The truth is that illegal mining is not an activity of the poor alone. It thrives on protection, licences, connections and cover from political and economic elites. The children who dig are cheap labour for those who profit, and when the operation is raided it is the children, not the sponsors, who are dragged into cells. The powerful never occupy those cells.

Nor can we separate this from the youth unemployment crisis. When a government fails to create jobs, fails to fund skills and education, and drives up the cost of living with capitalist policies as dictated by the IMF and World Bank, young people are pushed to survive in whatever way they can. They are then criminalised for that survival and, in this case, killed for it. Youth unemployment and illegal mining are two faces of the same failure of a capitalist state that serves capital, not the people.

OUR DEMANDS

  1. An open, independent and transparent investigation. The NSCDC cannot investigate itself. A probe led by the Deputy Commandant General for Intelligence and Investigation, an officer of the same institution under suspicion, will not command public confidence. We demand an independent panel that includes credible civil society organisations, labour unions and professional bodies, including the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), the Joint Action Front (JAF), the YRC and other socialist and progressive groups.
  2. An independent autopsy and forensic examination of all the bodies, with the results made public, and identification of the substance allegedly sprayed into the cell.
  3. Prosecution of everyone found culpable, from the officers who carried out the acts to the commanders who ordered or covered them up, and including anyone who extorted money from detainees’ families. No hiding behind the uniform, and no quiet transfers or “administrative” sanctions.
  4. Immediate suspension of the officers and commanders at the facility pending investigation, and preservation of all records, CCTV footage and evidence.
  5. Full compensation and support for the families of the victims as well as medical care and compensation for the survivors, who must be protected from intimidation and reprisals.
  6. A public accounting of who sponsors illegal mining in Niger State, and an end to the criminalisation of poor youth while the real beneficiaries walk free.
  7. For free, quality, well-funded public education, decent jobs, and an end to the iniquitous capitalist system that creates conditions for mass poverty

NEED FOR PRESSURE

The YRC calls on the working people and youth not to allow this crime to be buried under committee reports and press briefings as so many before it have been. Youth groups, pro-masses organisations and trade unions must keep the pressure on until justice is done.

37 young lives have been taken. Justice for them is not negotiable.

Michael Adaramoye Lenin

National Coordinator, YRC

Francis Nwapa

National Secretary, YRC

YRC email: [email protected]