ABUJA, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Nigeria's multiple security
problems have created a crisis that requires urgent attention
and could lead to instability in other African countries if it
is not addressed, a United Nations rapporteur said on Monday.
Security forces in Africa's most populous country are trying
to tackle a decade-long Islamist insurgency in the northeast,
banditry in the northwest and bloody clashes between nomadic
herdsmen and farming communities over dwindling arable land in
central states.
Agnes Callamard, the U.N. special rapporteur on
extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said Nigeria was
a "pressure cooker of internal conflict".
"The overall situation I have found is one of extreme
concern," she told a news conference in the capital, Abuja,
where she presented her preliminary findings following a 12-day
visit to the country.
Callamard said the police and military had shown an
excessive use of lethal force across the West African country
which, combined with a a lack of effective investigations and
meaningful prosecution, caused a lack of accountability.
She said the country required changes in the judiciary,
police and military to stop people resorting to violence in the
absence of justice.
"The lack of accountability is on such a scale that
pretending this is nothing short of a crisis will be a major
mistake. If ignored, its ripple effect will spread in the
sub-region given the country's important role in the continent,"
she said.
Spokesman for the ministries of justice, military and police
did not respond to a Reuters request for comment on Callamard's
findings.
The Islamist insurgency waged by Boko Haram began in
northeast Nigeria in 2009 but has spread to parts of
neighbouring Cameroon, Chad and Niger where members of the group
and militants allied to Islamic State carry out attacks.
The rapporteur also condemned what she said was the
"arbitrary deprivation of life" and the excessive use of lethal
force in the case of processions held by banned Shi'ite Muslim
group the Islamic Movement in Nigeria.
Callamard said the move to ban the group appeared be based
on what the authorities thought IMN could become rather than its
actions. She said she had not been presented with any evidence
to suggest the group was weaponised and posed a threat to the
country.