DATA from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), on Monday, showed that 28,969 Nigerians were killed from May 2015 till June 2019.
The data captures weekly the number of casualties, who lost their lives due to various causes, ranging from insurgency, herdsmen attacks, communal clashes among others.
Based on deaths by states represented on the maps, Borno State has the highest number of casualties, followed by Zamfara, Benue, Adamawa and Kaduna state respectively.
Deaths per month, however, showed that 6,323 causalities were recorded in the country from May to December 2015. In 2016, the number of casualties dropped to 5,763. The following year, specifically in 2017, it further declined to 4,618 while in 2018, deaths recorded rose to 6,565 people.
Prominent Nigerians, Governors and other concerned citizens are disturbed by the security situation in the country.
On Sunday, July 14 the ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo wrote an open letter to President Muhammadu Buhari, where he warned of imminent “dismemberment of the country,” if urgent action is not taken.
In the first half of 2019, the security tracker has recorded 5, 700 deaths, a figure higher than the combined number of deaths in 2018.
In January there were 1,077 casualties, 877 casualties were recorded in February, followed by 1,014 in March. In April, 1,072 deaths were recorded, 769 in May and 891 in June.
Due to an upsurge of insecurity in the country, the platform commenced monitoring of causalities on May 29, 2011, the very day former President Goodluck Jonathan was inaugurated to govern the country.
Similarly, some of the flash locations highlighted by the CFR were also reflected by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), an international organisation which collects data on violence, fatalities and their locations across Africa, Europe, the Middle East and other regions of the world.
According to ACLED, 30, 805 Nigerians were killed between 2015 and 2019.
Olugbenga heads the Investigations Desk at The ICIR. Do you have a scoop? Shoot him an email at oadanikin@icirnigeria.org. Twitter Handle: @OluAdanikin