• Nigeria: Show Commitment on Child Lead Poisoning
    Press release
    May 6, 2012
    High-level Nigerian government participation is needed at an upcoming international conference to make progress in ending a lead poisoning epidemic among children in Zamfara State, Human Rights Watch said today.
  • Nigeria: UK Conviction a Blow Against Corruption
    Press release
    Apr 17, 2012

    The money laundering conviction and 13-year prison term for the Nigerian politician James Ibori on April 17, 2012, is a landmark in the global fight against corruption. Ibori, one of Nigeria’s enduring symbols of criminality and impunity, pleaded guilty in a London court to charges involving more than $79 million. 

  • Nigeria: Boko Haram Targeting Schools
    Press release
    Mar 7, 2012
    The militant Islamist group Boko Haram has set more than a dozen schools on fire in northern Nigeria. Since the beginning of 2012, suspected Boko Haram members have attacked, damaged, and, in a few cases, destroyed at least 12 schools in and around Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, temporarily leaving several thousand children without access to education.
  • Corporate Crime and Punishment
    Commentary
    Feb 28, 2012

    On February 28, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case that will decide whether corporations will be exempted from a crucial law that allows foreign victims of serious human rights abuses to sue them in US courts for civil damages. Any decision that lets corporations off the hook would be a major blow to justice and contrary to the global move toward more corporate accountability. 

  • Nigeria: Child Lead Poisoning Crisis
    Press release
    Feb 7, 2012
    Thousands of children in northern Nigeria need immediate medical treatment and dozens of villages remain contaminated two years into the worst lead poisoning epidemic in modern history, Human Rights Watch said today while releasing a video on the issue. Four hundred children have died, according to official estimates, yet environmental cleanup efforts have not even begun in numerous affected villages.
  • Nigeria: Boko Haram Widens Terror Campaign
    Press release
    Jan 23, 2012
    The campaign of violence by the militant Islamist group Boko Haram, including attacks on churches and suicide bombings in the first three weeks of 2012 that killed more than 253 people, is an indefensible attack on human life. The January 20, 2012 attacks in the northern city of Kano left at least 185 police and residents dead and resulted in the highest death toll in a single day since Boko Haram began its violent campaign in July 2009. More than 935 people have been killed in some 164 suspected attacks by the group during this period.
  • Nigeria: Release Labor Activists
    Press release
    Jan 17, 2012

    Nigerian authorities should immediately release labor union leader Osmond Ugwu and union member Raphael Elobuike, and drop all charges, given the glaring lack of evidence in the prosecution’s case against them. The authorities should investigate state involvement in breaking up a peaceful union meeting and arresting the union activists in violation of the right to freedom of association and assembly, the groups said.

  • Nigeria: Firing of Anti-Corruption Czar Won’t Fix Agency
    Press release
    Nov 23, 2011

    The sudden dismissal of Nigeria’s controversial anti-corruption chairman will not fix the troubled agency she led. The government should carry out broad institutional reforms if Nigeria is to make real progress against corruption.

  • Nigeria: Boko Haram Attacks Indefensible
    Press release
    Nov 8, 2011
    The bombings by the militant Islamist group Boko Haram that killed at least 100 people in the northern Nigerian state of Yobe on November 4, 2011 were an indefensible attack on human life.
  • Nigeria: ‘Same Gender’ Marriage Ban Would Attack Rights
    Press release
    Nov 1, 2011
    The bill before Nigeria’s National Assembly to ban “same gender marriage” would threaten all Nigerians’ rights. The bill, under consideration for the third time in five years, would expand Nigeria’s already draconian punishments for consensual same-sex conduct and set a precedent that would threaten all Nigerians’ rights to privacy, equality, free expression, association, and to be free from discrimination.