by James Sambo

According to an AFP report, on Wednesday, 5 November, after morning prayers, Nigerian soldiers rounded up 17 people, including an imam, from the Dogo Tebo area of Potiskum in Yobe state.

The 16 men who were arrested by the soldiers were found dead hours later with bullet wounds.

Residents and hospital staff said the bodies of the men, except the Imam were later found in the morgue at the Potiskum General Hospital.

A nurse who asked not to be identified because he was not authorised to speak to the media told AFP that, “All the bodies have gunshot wounds on them.”

“The bodies had been brought in by soldiers and were formally identified by community leaders and residents from Dogo Tegbo.”

A resident, Tukur Danu, said the cleric was not among the dead, saying: “We are worried about what they could do to him.”

According to leaders of the community, the 16 men were picked up and killed because they were from the Kanuri ethnic group that forms the majority of Boko Haram’s membership.

A community leader in Dogo Tebo, asked for a probe, while commenting on the killings.

He said, “We demand a probe into this unjustifiable murder. We believe they were killed on suspicion of being Boko Haram because they were Kanuris. ”

“The government should look into this cold-blooded murder and ensure justice is done because being a soldier is not a licence to kill at will on mere suspicion,” he added.

“Our fear is we don’t know what they will do next,” he said, adding that three more people were arrested late on Wednesday in the same area.

On Monday, at least 15 people were killed and some 50 others were injured in a suicide bombing targeting a major Shia Muslim festival in Potiskum.

Nigeria’s military have been previously accused of carrying out extra-judicial killings in the fight against Boko Haram, by Human rights groups in Nigeria and beyond.

In March, Amnesty International said that there was “credible evidence” that more than 600 people were summarily executed in the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, after a Boko Haram jail break.

In August, a video was released by the organisation, where some “soldiers” were caught on camera slitting the throats of rounded Boko Haram suspects, one after the other, and dumping them en masse into graves. The Nigeria Army would however, release a statement, saying that the men in uniform were not members of the Army.