Femi Falana, a senior advocate of
Nigeria (SAN), says Yahya Jammeh, ousted Gambian president, ordered the
execution of 50 persons, including nine Nigerians, in 2005.
In a statement on Friday, the
human rights lawyer said his law firm had been able to identify Omozemoje Paul
Enagameh as one of the Nigerians killed by the Jammeh regime.
Following Jammeh’s removal, the
Human Rights Watch and TRIAL International had revealed that a paramilitary
unit controlled by Jammeh summarily executed Nigerians, Ghanaians and other
West African migrants in July 2005.
Gambian officials had told Human
Rights Watch that the migrants, who were bound for Europe were suspected of
being mercenaries intent on overthrowing Jammeh.
They were murdered after being
detained by the former president’s closest deputies in the army, navy, and
police.
Falana said his firm found that
the nine Nigerians who were involved were traveling with their passports as of
the time they were killed.
“On July 21, 2005, the Gambian
Navy seized a boat conveying 58 immigrants. Aboard the boat were nine
Nigerians, 40 Ghanaians, 3 Senegaleze, 3 Sierra Leoneans and two Togolese
sailing towards a fishing vessel anchored on the high sea to stowaway to
Europe,” the statement read.
“Apart from two Ghanaian
nationals who were released to a Ghanaian government delegation another
Ghanaian escaped from the custody of the navy. But the remaining 55 immigrants
were illegally executed on the orders of the brutal regime of Mr. Yayah Jameh,
former President of Gambia.
“In the investigation conducted
by our law firm into the killings it has been established that the 9 Nigerians
involved were travelling with their passports. However, the Nigerian Community
in Senegal confirmed the identity of one of the massacred Nigerian immigrants.
The details are:-
“Name: Omozemoje Paul Enagameh
Passport No: A1548206
Place of Birth: Lagos
Date of Birth: 9th December 1976.”
Thanking Geoffrey Onyeama,
minister of foreign affairs, for providing vital information in the
investigation, Falana called on family members of the deceased to take
opportunity to seek redress in the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations
Commission currently sitting in Banjul, the Gambia capital.
Jammeh, who lost Gambia’s
presidential election in 2016, refused to step aside but he bowed to pressure
after an intervention leaders of the Economic Community of West African States
(ECOWAS).
He has since been on exile.
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