Comrade Timi Frank, former Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has condemned what he described as the “cold-blooded execution” of nine women during a peaceful protest in Lamurde Local Government Area of Adamawa State.
The women, who had gathered on Monday to demand action against rising insecurity in their communities, were met with gunfire allegedly unleashed by military personnel. Nine of them were killed instantly while 51 others are in hospital battling life-threatening gunshot injuries.
Frank, in a statement released in Abuja, said the deaths reflect a disturbing collapse of state responsibility. He described the victims as “mothers, workers, breadwinners—women whose only ‘crime’ was asking the government to protect them and their children.”
He warned that the tragedy is symptomatic of a broader pattern of unchecked military brutality across Nigeria and Africa. According to him, more than 10,000 Nigerian youths have been killed or forcibly disappeared in recent years through military actions, secret detentions and extrajudicial killings. “We are becoming numb to horror,” he lamented.
Frank dismissed the federal government’s expected announcement of an investigative panel, calling such committees “rituals of deception” crafted to delay justice and shield those responsible. He referenced the unpunished #EndSARS shootings, as well as similar crackdowns in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Cameroon and Zimbabwe, noting that “Africa’s security forces have learned one lesson: no one ever pays for killing civilians.”
The ULMWP Ambassador to East Africa and the Middle East issued a list of urgent demands. He called for the arrest and prosecution of all officers—both those present at the scene and those who issued command orders—describing the killing of the Yola Nine as “barbaric, criminal and indefensible.”
He insisted that the federal and state governments must provide full reparations to the families of the deceased, including scholarships for their children and long-term social and economic support. “No child should inherit poverty because their mother was murdered by the state,” he said.
Frank urged the International Criminal Court (ICC) to launch a comprehensive investigation into security-force abuses in Nigeria, arguing that domestic mechanisms have consistently failed. As Senior Advisor to the Global Friendship City Association (GFCA), USA, he also called for global sanctions, travel bans and prosecutions for military leaders who authorise violence against unarmed citizens.
He appealed to international allies—civil society networks, human rights defenders, women’s rights organisations and democratic institutions—to amplify the call for justice. In a direct message to President Donald Trump and the U.S. government, Frank urged Washington to demand accountability and support international action. “The United States has demonstrated it can stand with oppressed African citizens. We need that same moral courage now,” he said.
Frank described the killings as not merely a Nigerian tragedy but “an assault on Africa’s conscience.” He warned that the continent cannot continue to normalise soldiers firing on peaceful citizens without consequences.
“The Yola Nine must not become another forgotten headline,” he said. “Justice must be enforced. Accountability must begin now. And this culture of barbarism must end forever.”