Three days into the last month of the year, a horrible thing happened in Tudun Biri, a sleepy hilly village in Igabi local government council area in Kaduna State. That Sunday, the villagers filed out in a procession, celebrating the birthday of Prophet Muhammad (SWT). Suddenly, there was a crash from the sky above them. A military drone had dropped bombs, and the boom boom explosions sent men, women and children fleeing, confusedly, in different directions. And there was a second bombing. By the time the dust settled, 87 dead bodies had been picked. Forty others died in the bush and hospital. The fallen were buried in mass graves the following day.
Initially, it was thought the Air Force did the bombings. That was denied. Then the Army said it was responsible, saying the attacks were inadvertent. An “accident”, it said. Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, speaking Tuesday on Arise Television, said the army acted on intelligence that turned out be incorrect. “(We) missed it,” he said, describing the result as “regrettable”. President Bola Tinubu has called the killings “unfortunate”, “painful” and “tragic”, promising a “thorough investigation”. Vice President Kashim Shettima followed with a condolence visit, accompanied by Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Taoreed Abiofun Lagbaja. Shettima was at Barau Dikko Teaching Hospital, Kaduna, Thursday, where he said the government would get to the root of the incident. “The government will go to the root of the issue and anyone found culpable will be punished accordingly,” he promised, adding, “all measures will be taken to ensure that future occurrences are averted.” He also asured that victims of the drone attacks would be cared for.
Non-state reaction has been accusatory, at worse, emotional and, occasionally, level-headed and constructive. Take, for example, this official line by the Area Consultative Forum (ACF). “The General Officer Commanding One Division of the Nigerian Army, Kaduna, (Major General V.U. Okoro), along with his immediate subordinate officers, should be redeployed to allow for unfettered investigations,” the ACF said in a statement. “As a trite principle of justice, One Division of the Nigerian Army must not and should not be allowed to investigate itself. An independent panel of investigators is clearly indicated. Further, the results of the investigations must be made public, issues that border on national security considerations excepted. “The defence headquarters should retract its needless statement. The Ministry of Defence, and the Armed Forces in particular, should take steps to ensure that such incidents are avoided or contained to the barest minimum humanly possible.The Federal Government must take responsibility for full compensation to all victims of Tudun Biri. The gesture should also be extended to victims (of) all previous such incidents.”
Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, an outspoken cleric and advocate for dialogue with terrorists, condemned the Tudun Biri tragedy, but believed the bombings were targeted at “the families of some people so as to kill their children and wives.” He said he had been to a village “where women and children were massacred in a remote forest. Many people have been bombed. Nobody said anything until it came nearer to the city. I have been saying that whatever is between us, whether it is bandits or Boko Haram, there should be peaceful negotiation.” Another commentator, a sacked high public officer, said Tudun Biri was intentional; it was carried out with the knowledge of a government with “a fraudulent Muslim-Muslim ticket” to kill Muslims. This is perhaps taking it too far. A personally aggrieved former top public servant trying to take his pound of flesh.
This is where we, as citizens, need to be careful so that the conversation doesn’t become strained and miss the point. And what is the point? It is that, first and foremost, over a hundred Nigerians, not adherents of one religion or another, were killed in a misdirected raid. An attack meant to dislodge supposed bandits and terrorists but which went terribly wrong and innocent people died as a result of that poor judgement. It is proper that we empathize with our compatriots who have suffered and pray God to accept the souls of those we’ve lost.
Secondly, the Army’s readiness to take full responsibility for the Tudun Biri (monkey hill) debacle is something entirely new. We welcome it. There had been several such “accidents” in the past, particularly in the former Boko Haram ravaged northeast. We only were told there would be “investigations”, followed by an eerie silence. However, Gen. Musa’s excuse that “humans make mistakes” is not it. The military are not just humans, they’re trained, professional soldiers. Mistakes may occur but they mustn’t be on the scale of Tudun Biri. It suggests a worrying lack of professionalism and a force overwhelmed and fatigued. This is the under current that washed away Tudun Biri.
This is why the “full-fledged investigation” promised by the President should get under way soonest. It should ask questions such as why the governor of Kaduna State, who is the chief security officer, was not informed about the raid before hand and why the Air Force, just across the highway from the One Div., was not brought into the picture? Inter service rivalry perhaps? And why was the intelligence the army worked with so dismally wrong? The inquiry should take particular note of Gen. Musa’s insinuation that “there are Nigerians that are supporting (terrorists), supplying them equipment and food. There are Nigerians that are doing so much to trade with them, carrying fuel and food to them.” We need to those “Nigerians” undermining the war effort.
