Nigeria showcases aircraft to monitor crime-infested waters

Nigeria's military on Tuesday took the wraps off a new aircraft to tackle high-seas pirates off the country's coast, as well as maritime hijackers and oil thieves.

The high-tech plane is one of seven to be operated by the state-run Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and the Nigerian Air Force.

 

It includes sensors, radar and Electro-Optic Surveillance and Tracking (EOST) equipment, which houses three cameras to monitor ships in Nigerian waters, said Sergeant Sunday Olalekan Omotosho.

 

"When fully operational, no vessel can escape our coverage," he told reporters before a demonstration flight from Lagos to Escravos in the Niger Delta and over offshore platforms in the oil-producing southeast.

 

The 20-seat plane can fly as low as 200 feet (60 metres) above the sea and passes on information about maritime traffic to the navy, who can intervene with fast-attack craft if necessary, he added.

 

"Our aim is to fight all manner of maritime crimes in the country. With this aircraft, we can spot any vessel hundreds of kilometres (miles) away," said Air Group Captain Enobong Eneh Effiom.

 

The aircraft is inscribed with the words: "Vigilance over the ocean."

 

Piracy off the western coast of Africa has been rising in recent years, with attackers targeting ships playing a key role in the region's thriving oil industry.

 

Early this month, global maritime watchdog the International Maritime Bureau said West African piracy made up 19 percent of attacks worldwide last year.

 

Nigerian pirates accounted for 31 of the region's 51 attacks -- the most since 2008.

Massacre in Nigeria Spurs Outcry Over Military Tactics

Burned houses and ashes were left in the wake of heavy fighting between security forces and Islamist militants in Baga.

Days later, the survivors’ faces tensed at the memory of the grim evening: soldiers dousing thatched-roof homes with gasoline, setting them on fire and shooting residents when they tried to flee. As the village rose up in smoke, one said, a soldier threw a child back into the flames. 

Even by the scorched-earth standards of the Nigerian military’s campaign against Islamist insurgents stalking the nation’s north, what happened on the muddy shores of Lake Chad this month appears exceptional. 

The village, Baga, found itself in the cross hairs of Nigerian soldiers enraged by the killing of one of their own, said survivors who fled here to the state capital, 100 miles south. Their home had paid a heavy price: as many as 200 civilians, maybe more, were killed during the military’s rampage, according to refugees, senior relief workers, civilian officials and human rights organizations. 

The apparent size of the civilian death toll — staunchly denied by Nigerian military officials, some of whom blame the insurgent group, Boko Haram, for the carnage — has prompted an unusual uproar. Though heavy civilian casualties are routine in the military’s confrontation with Boko Haram, with dozens dying in poor neighborhoods since 2010 as the army searches for “suspects,” Nigeria’s politicians usually have little to say about it. Past massacres of civilians in retaliation for soldier deaths have passed largely with impunity. 

This time, there have been calls in Nigeria’s national assembly for an investigation and the government has come under withering criticism at home and abroad. The military has said it has begun its own inquiry, and some longstanding observers of the country’s heavy-handed fight against Islamist militants say a tipping point may have been reached. 

“This is coming at a time when we have had similar situations” elsewhere, said Kole Shettima, chairman of the Center for Democracy and Development in the capital, Abuja. “People are tired of the excuses the military is giving and that’s why they are demanding an investigation. This time it’s different. There is a crisis of legitimacy in the military.” 

But in a country where corruption abounds and accountability is rare, others wondered whether it would truly become a watershed moment — or get brushed aside as an unfortunate side effect of fighting a dangerous insurgency. 

“This Baga is just on a bigger scale, but they have been doing this for ages,” the governor of the state, Kashim Shettima, one of the first officials to reach Baga afterward, said of the military. “They’ve not adhered to the rules of engagement,” said Mr. Shettima, who is not related to the democracy advocate. “When you burn down shops and massacre civilians, you are pushing them to join the camp of Boko Haram.” 

Yet, he continued, “We are in a Catch-22 situation.” Boko Haram is a deadly insurgent force that needs to be confronted, the governor said, but not by a military that terrorizes its own people. “We need them to carry out their duties in a civilized manner.” 

Some Baga residents who did not perish in the flames drowned while attempting to escape into Lake Chad, refugees here in the state capital said. Others were attacked by hippopotamuses in the shallow waters, officials said. Soldiers shot people as they ran from the burning houses, refugees said. 

“Many dead, many dead,” said Mohammed Muhammed, 40, a taxi driver from Baga. “People running into the flames, I saw that. If they didn’t run into the flames, the army will shoot them.” As flames enveloped the houses — “they used petroleum,” he said of the soldiers — he fled into the surrounding desert scrub. 

“If you come out” from the flaming houses “they will shoot you,” he said. “Please sir, charge them in the international court!” he shouted. 

Isa Kukulala, 26, a lanky bus driver who had left Baga that morning, gave a similar account: “They poured petrol on the properties. At the same time, they are shooting sporadically, inside the fire. They took a small child from his mother and threw him inside the fire. This is what I have witnessed.”

Nigeria - Baga: DHQ Denies Soldiers' Arrest, as Senator Claims 228 Died

The Defence Headquarters has denied media reports that it has set up panel and arrested several soldiers in connection with the recent incident where hundreds of civilians were alleged to have been killed in Baga border town of Borno State during a firefight between the Multinational Task Force (MTF) and members of the Boko Haram Islamic Sect.

This was contained in a statement signed Saturday by the Director of Defence Information (DDI),  Brig-Gen. Chris Olukolade when THISDAY inquired to confirm the report.

Olukolade said that the said report, which claimed the arrest of 15 soldiers over the Baga incident is totally false and "sensational".

Meanwhile, Senator Maina Maaji Lawan, who represents the senatorial zone of Borno State where the attack took place, insists over 200 people lost their lives during the incident.

"I personally visited three graveyards in Baga and counted 228 graves where victims had been buried," he said in a report carried by Reuters on Saturday.

Nigerian army says seven die in latest Islamist attack

Two Nigerian policemen and five attackers were killed in a midnight raid on a police station by suspected members of the Islamist sect Boko Haram in northeast Yobe state, the military said on Thursday.

The attack occurred less than a week after a bloody gun battle between Islamist insurgents and joint military forces from Nigeria, Chad and Niger in neighboring Borno state.

That clash may have been one of the deadliest since Boko Haram launched an uprising in 2009. The Nigerian Red Cross is checking reports from locals that 187 people died, although government officials have said this figure is inflated.

Boko Haram and other Islamist groups, such as the al Qaeda-affiliated Ansaru, have become the greatest threat to security in Africa's second largest economy and top oil producer.

"At about midnight Thursday ... gunmen suspected to be Boko Haram terrorists attacked Joint Task Force location in Gashua town," spokesman for the Yobe military force Eli Lazarus said.

"Two police officers were killed in the attack while five of the suspected terrorists lost their lives during the encounter."

Lazarus said a rocket-propelled grenade, several vehicles, guns and ammunition had been recovered from the insurgents.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan is awaiting a report from a panel he set up to offer an amnesty to the insurgents if they give up their struggle for an Islamic state.

Boko Haram has so far shown no interest in talks and two mediators have already pulled out.

The sect, which wants an Islamic state in a country divided roughly equally between Christians and Muslims, has killed hundreds of people in guerrilla-style attacks, mostly targeting security forces in its northeastern stronghold.