for not having been able to take the appropriate measures to pay
compensation for the prejudice suffered by the victims.”
100. It follows that the perpetrators need not be agents of States as the obligation
imposes a duty to protect individual persons within their jurisdiction from violations
of their rights both by state and non-state actors. The Court is therefore compelled
to come to the inevitable conclusion that the Respondent having admitted to the facts
of killings and destruction of properties cannot be exonerated on the basis that the
perpetrators are non-state actors. The Court therefore holds that the Respondent is
violation of the right to life of the within named deceased persons
101. Member States must ensure that all reasonable measures have been taken to
protect all the rights guaranteed under the African Charter and other International
human Rights instruments to which they are signatories. It should however be noted
that the Respondent will not automatically be held in violation of its obligation to
protect once there are killings. The circumstances leading to the killing and
destruction must be such as to render the Respondent in breach of its obligation to
protect. The watch word here is reasonableness. Reasonableness depends on the
circumstance of each case. What is reasonable in one case may be unreasonable in
another case under different circumstances. Where there is an unanticipated and
spontaneous uprising leading to the killing of persons the test of reasonableness will
be how promptly the authorities responded to quell the uprising and protect further
killings. However where the authorities had notice of the impending uprising and
did nothing, either to protect the people or nip it in the bud, their action will be
unreasonable even if they promptly arrived at the scene to quell the uprising once
some people have been killed or injured.
102. In addressing the number of persons that the Applicants alleged were killed, it
is imperative to address the discrepancy in the number of lives lost listed in the
Initiating Application and those in Exhibit 26. The initiating application sought
damages for “839 lives killed at N22, 982,428.00 per person totalling N1,
947,909,894.00”. On the other hand Exhibit 26 which has been admitted by the court
put the number of lives lost as 827. It will be recalled that the said Exhibit 26 is the
report of the of the Committee set up by the Respondent to investigate and make
recommendations regarding the crisis that led to the mass killing and destruction of
properties in 9 States including Kaduna State were the deceased Applicants resided.
28