A group of 30 civil society organisations (CSOs) has called on the Nigerian army to suspend its 2020 Operation Crocodile Smile exercise.
The army had announced that the annual exercise, which is traditionally conducted in the last quarter of the year, will hold between October 20 and December 31.
Spokesman for the army, Col. Sagir Musa, said that the Crocodile Smile VI will include cyber warfare exercises aimed at identifying, tracking and countering propaganda against the country.
But the CSOs said that launching such exercise during protests against police brutality was dangerous.
The CSOs are Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD West Africa), Enough is Enough (EIE), Partners for Electoral Reform (PER), Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Centre for Information, Technology and Development (CITAD), Yiaga Africa, Global Rights, Project Alert, Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre (WARDC) and Paradigm Initiative.
Others are Rule of Law and Accountability Centre (RULAAC), HEDA Resource Centre, African Centre for Media and Information Literacy (AFRICMIL), Community Life Project (CLP), Protest to Power (P2P), Social Action (SA), Take Back Nigeria Movement (TBN), Right to Know (R2K), Lawyers Alert, and Private and Public Development Centre (PPDC).
Also part of the coalition are South Saharan Social Development Organisation (SSSDO), Partners West Africa-Nigeria (PWA-Nigeria), Centre-LSD, Connected Development (CODE), Stakeholders Development Network (SDN), BUDGiT, CWCW Africa, Peering Advocacy and Advancement Centre in Africa (PAACA), Invictus Africa and Prisoners’ Rehabilitation and Welfare Action (PRAWA).
‘The military already said they are loyal to the president, not to the nation, and what they were simply saying is that they are prepared if the president is also prepared to crush the protesters’, Jaye Gaskia of TBN said at a press conference.
‘That is unconstitutional. The military has no role in intervening in civilian matters because the state has not been overwhelmed.
‘There is no formal invitation from the civil authority to the military that they are overwhelmed.
‘The military is playing a dangerous game because we all know that anytime the military had made this kind of statement in the past, it always result to a Coup d’état so the government should also watch what the military is doing’.
Director of CDD, Idayat Hassan, said, ‘So far, we can confirm at least 13 persons have been extra judicially killed in the course of the peaceful protests…
‘In addition is the attack on peaceful assembly in eight states of Oyo, Lagos, Edo, Plateau, Anambra, FCT, Kano and Osun’.
She also said, ‘We reject in its entirety the move to draft in the military to quell the protests, even where there has been no violent conduct on the part of protesters.
‘The military should remain in their barracks and at their duty posts, defending the territorial integrity of the country, and not deployed in a dangerous anti-people and anti-democratic operation to crush a people who are exercising their right to freedom of association, freedom of expression, and freedom of assembly’.
Protests, with hashtag #EndSARS, were triggered by the alleged killing of a young man by operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) in Lagos State on 03 October.
SARS, which was specifically set up to fight robbery and kidnapping, has long been accused of harassment, unlawful arrests, torture and killings.
The police unit has been dissolved but protesters are demanding a complete reform of the police force.
Source: CDD West Africa
Photo: CDD West Africa
