Nigeria
Practice Relating to Rule 47. Attacks against Persons Hors de Combat
Nigeria’s Operational Code of Conduct (1967) states: “Soldiers who surrender will not be killed.”
Under Nigeria’s Military Manual (1994), it is prohibited “to kill or wound an enemy who, having laid down his arms, or having no longer any means of defence, has surrendered at discretion”.
Nigeria’s Manual on the Laws of War considers “killing or injuring an enemy who has laid down his weapons” as an “illegitimate tactic”.
Under Nigeria’s Soldiers’ Code of Conduct, it is prohibited “to kill or wound an enemy who, having laid down his arms, or having no longer any means of defence has surrendered at discretion”.
In 1968, in a Nigerian case referred to by the ICTY Appeals Chamber in the interlocutory appeal in the
Tadić case, “a Nigerian Lieutenant was court-martialled, sentenced to death and executed by a firing squad at Port-Harcourt for killing a rebel Biafran soldier who had surrendered to Federal troops near Aba”.