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IX. Recommendations

To the Nigerian Federal and Delta State Governments

  • Identify and rapidly bring to justice, in accordance with international standards, those responsible for organizing the violence in Delta State, as well as those who carried out the killings. Launch thorough, prompt and impartial investigations into the conduct of the security forces during the violence of 2003 and the previous outbreaks of violence in Delta State, in particular into the allegations of security force bias and misconduct made by either side, make public the results of this investigation, and bring to justice those implicated in abuses.

  • Put in place an integrated strategy for investigating illegal oil bunkering activities, up to the highest level, and for ensuring that such investigations and resulting arrests and prosecutions are not affected by political considerations.

  • Ensure that all communities, regardless of ethnicity, in Delta State receive equal protection from the security forces. Deployment of additional security, especially to the riverine areas, will not assist in finding a permanent solution to the crisis unless the security forces act professionally and impartially, without themselves carrying out human rights violations.

  • Take steps to reschedule federal and state elections in Delta State (and other states where national and international monitors found such serious irregularities that no genuine election could be said to have been held) ensuring that the rescheduled elections fulfill minimum international standards. For all elections, the government should implement the reforms suggested by the teams observing the 1999 and 2003 elections. Amongst other things, the Electoral Act should be thoroughly reviewed; the independence of INEC should be guaranteed, the role of the state electoral commissions clarified, and the capacity for electoral administration strengthened; a permanent system of voter registration should be put in place; and improved systems for ward and constituency delimitation should be established.

  • In order to ensure, among other things, that competition for government resources does not contribute to violence among ethnic groups, especially at election time, put in place proper controls over federal and state government spending—in consultation with the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and other relevant international agencies—to ensure that budgets are properly audited, off-budget spending eliminated, and government resources allocated in a non-discriminatory manner.

  • Provide relief assistance to individuals whose houses or livelihoods were destroyed during the violence.

  • Intensify and encourage dispute resolution initiatives and other measures aimed at preventing further violence, including by taking steps to negotiate solutions to the political disputes that underlie the violence, and by supporting civil society grassroots and leadership initiatives to foster dialogue and cooperation among Ijaw, Itsekiri, and Urhobo communities. In attempting to resolve the crisis take into account the recurring violence of previous years and the findings of investigations and studies into the 1997 and 1999 clashes. Special efforts should be made to listen to the grievances and suggestions of the various communities affected by the conflicts.

  • Strengthen controls over government-held weapons to ensure they cannot be diverted into private hands. Prevent arms inflows to the delta, including by improving border security. Learning from the experience of other African countries, develop a program for the disarmament of the armed militia operating in the delta that does not depend on indiscriminate raids into the communities where they are believed to live. Press for the strengthening of the ECOWAS small arms moratorium and its implementation, which should be expanded to encompass all weapons categories, developed into an information-exchange mechanism, and be made binding.

  • Explore the possibilities of oil certification as a means of reducing the role of illegal oil bunkering in fueling the violence, by reducing the income that can be made from the illegal sale of oil.

To foreign governments, intergovernmental organizations, and the oil companies

  • Urge the Nigerian government at state and federal level to seek a peaceful resolution to the political issues raised by the various parties to the Warri crisis and to ensure that all Nigerians receive equal protection of the law.

  • Urge Nigerian government and security force officials to ensure that members of the security forces deployed to quell violence in any future incidents of unrest refrain from excessive use of force, extrajudicial executions, and other human rights violations.

  • Fund thorough national and international monitoring of future elections, basing diplomatic responses to the elections on the findings of election observers. Urge the Nigerian government to rehold the 2003 elections in Delta State and in other states where minimum international standards were not met.

  • Support appropriate national and local dispute resolution initiatives aimed at defusing inter-communal tensions in Delta State and elsewhere, and urge both federal and state government institutions to do likewise.

  • Fund independent human rights groups to carry out thorough, impartial documentation of the human rights abuses committed in the course of the violence in Delta State and to press the government to take action to prosecute those responsible and provide equal protection for all ethnic groups in the state.

  • Provide funds for relief assistance to those affected by conflict in Delta State and elsewhere in Nigeria.

  • Governments providing training, weapons or other military equipment to the Nigerian military should suspend all such assistance until the Nigerian government has shown a commitment to ending the impunity which still protects the military, including at minimum bringing to justice those responsible for the killings and destruction in Benue State in 2001, and in Odi, Bayelsa state, in 1999.

  • Explore, as part of other initiatives to increase transparency in the exploitation of primary resources, the possibilities of oil certification as a means of reducing the role of illegal oil bunkering in fueling violence.


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November 2003