The Nigerian Army, as a matter of urgency, needs to be restrained from prostituting military might to tyranny. Within a fortnight, the Nigerian forces have killed a number of people in circumstances that – barring a proper investigation – are describable as assassinations. During the pro-Biafran protests in the South-East, nine Nigerian citizens were reportedly killed by the Joint Military Task Force who – more or less- accused them of recalcitrance. Typical of enraged protesters, they were said to have laid a siege to the Niger Bridge causing a traffic snarl. Up till now, nobody has, unsurprisingly, answered for their deaths.

On Saturday, the Nigerian Army attacked members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria led by Sheik Ibrahim El-Zakzaky for blocking the road too. They also accused the group, an Islamic sect, of attempting to kill the Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai. Many people are dead as a result of that attack and the Army, it seems, is trying too hard to justify the brutal force unleashed on those people.

Anybody who believes the Nigerian Army wholesale is (un)wittingly supporting a genocidal group who are neither reflective nor remorseful. From Odi to Zaki Biam, Nigerian soldiers have often acted unprofessionally in dealing with civilians. If they can set fire on the BRT buses in a cosmopolitan place like Lagos over a senseless reason, who discounts what they are capable of in Kaduna? In a statement by the Army spokesperson, one Col. Sani Usman, the Army actually blamed the victims for their own death. Even more annoying is their haste to pronounce judgment in the brutal murder of civilians. How does the military rush to announce that the attack on the sect was carried out according to “rules of engagement”? Considering the number of people that died, should the Army’s priority be self-justification?

How does the Army define “rules of engagement” in this case? How does it extend to the part where they visited the sect leader, Sheik Ibrahim El Zakzaky’s house and attacked it? The term can be ambiguous and perhaps rather capacious that it deserves to be subjected to a rigorous analysis of the circumstances that propelled the armed soldiers to use what I sense was a disproportionate amount of force. This should never have happened. “Rules of engagement” does not mean use of uncontrolled deadly force and neither is it a sufficient explanation in this case. The Army claimed that they attacked members of the sect on the road because they were “heavily armed with dangerous weapons, ranging from long swords, knives, daggers, sticks, iron rods to catapult.” I am also curious to know how the soldiers were able to quickly spot this wide range of weapons, assess the situation and decide that the best response was to open fire. As a matter of fact, who gave the order to attack and how, when did they arrive at this decision? How can trained soldiers, armed with deadly weapons consider the items like sticks and stones and catapults, as commensurate with theirs? I have tried (in vain) to wrap my head around how those Shiites would have been so silly to face guns with hand weapons that would require close contact and between 60 and 100 people (no definite figure) would have to drop dead.

Even more curious is that no soldier was reported dead through the so-called “deadly weapons” these people supposedly wielded.

Decent Army organisations, after certain killings, question themselves if the amount of force that was applied was warranted given the circumstances. This level of rigorous reflexivity is not only missing in the Saturday post-massacre engagement, the sort of arrogance displayed in Usman’s statement is frightening. If the Nigerian Army can be so blatant in its approach when dealing with a crisis that occurred in the city, only heavens know the kind of atrocities they might have been committing in rural Borno where they are far from the censoring gazes of Nigerians.

The Nigerian state should bring in a third party to investigate the attack. There is no way the Army can investigate itself and any reasonable person would expect them to blame themselves for the massacre. Self-preservation will be their first and consistent line of defence and it behoves the rest of us to sieve through their words and conduct in order to pick out what will inevitably be the untruths. We should acknowledge that dead men do not talk and the victims of Saturday’s killings are not in a position to speak for themselves. Whatever the Army says will be their word against the dead and it will amount to gross injustice and sheer disrespect for human lives to allow the Army have the last word in this situation.

We have been told that the issue is being investigated but as things go in Nigeria, that is often a poorly crafted excuse to redirect attention to some other abracadabra in the polity. Nigeria is hardly ever self-scrutinising in matters that require intense soul-searching. One and a half years ago, the Army attacked this same sect and about 35 people – including three sons of El-Zakzaky – were reportedly executed. The Army promised to investigate that incident but that was where it ended. El-Zakzaky recently claimed that President Goodluck Jonathan called him privately to apologise but he rejected his “sorry.” Jonathan himself has not denied this and this makes one wonder, in which universe does a President suspend rule of law for a secret apology over a public wrong?

Let me close with this: I have read a number of analyses warning Nigeria to be careful how they deal with members of this religious sect because we may soon have another Boko Haram situation in our hands. This fear is legitimate, given recent events of history. However, for me, that is a rather less terrifying prospect than the thought of having unrestrained assassins who are armed, paid from the public purse and unleashed on the country in quick succession.

From the pro-Biafran protesters in Onitsha to the Shi’ites, the Nigerian Army needs a lot of basic training in handling protesters. In the United States, we have seen protesters of #blacklivesmatter grow violent and even destroy public property. We saw federal forces being moved down to cities where those protests were taking place, heavily militarising those neighbourhoods such that the local residents had to protest. What we did not see is the marines shooting and killing those protesters even when provoked. Not a single one of them died; those soldiers have been taught that violence is a concomitant effect of such volatile gatherings. That protesters resort to violence does not justify them being treated like actual enemy combatants.

This kind of civilised attitude comes with training; something Nigerian soldiers are long overdue for. Since the military regime ended, some of them still have not learnt that civil rule requires some kind of civility. They perhaps still imagine that bearing arms and being decked in uniforms give them some kind of right to be state-sanctioned assassins; killing people who refuse to obey direct instructions. This abuse of power and privilege has got to stop and be replaced with a sense of responsibility towards the people they purport to serve. It is our collective duty to speak up on this. We need the President (who has been curiously silent) and the legislature to sit on this and let the Army know that they are not an authority to themselves. They are subject to the rule of law just like every one of us. If we keep quiet today, this bloodshed will haunt all of us later. Because, yesterday they came for the Biafrans and we did nothing. Today that they have come for the Shi’ites, we should act because tomorrow, or the day after, it will eventually get to our turn. Everyone of us, I mean.