The family members of deceased victims of the recent military airstrike in Kaduna State have sued the Nigerian government.
Recall that an airstrike by the Nigerian Army Tudun Biri village in the Igabi local government area of Kaduna State on 3 December killed scores of people numbering over 100.
This action has since sparked reactions from Nigerians.
The deceased’s family members in a suit filed at the Federal High Court in Kaduna are demanding N33 billion compensation, court documents show.
They identified the Federal Government of Nigeria, the Attorney-General of the Federation, and the Chief of Army Staff as defendants.
The plaintiff, Dalhatu Salihu, in the suit filed on 8 December sought an order for the enforcement of the fundamental rights to life of the airstrike victims – Sani Sulaiman, Salima Abdurrahman, Ibrahim Idris, and 50 others.
A lawyer to the plaintiff, Mukhtar Usman, predicated the suit on relevant sections of the Fundamental Rights Enforcement Procedure Rules 2009, the Nigerian constitution and the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights.
The suit urged the court to declare that the “act of striking dead by way of aerial bombardment of the deceased victims,” who were celebrating an Islamic event at their village by the military “amounts to an infringement of the deceased victims’ fundamental rights to life” as enshrined in the Nigerian constitution and international legal instruments.
The plaintiff prayed the court to declare the military airstrike “illegal, unlawful and unconstitutional.”
He asked for a N333 billion compensation against the government “to be paid to the relations of the deceased victims as exemplary damages for their arbitrary, unlawful and unconstitutional killing.”
In another prayer, the plaintiff urged the court to declare a 10 percent interest rate per annum from the date of the delivery of the judgement until the judgement sum is fully liquidated.
He equally demanded a public apology from the government over the killings to be published in three national dailies in Nigeria.