Letter to Nigerian President Obasanjo Regarding His Second Term

Dear President Obasanjo,

I am writing to you as you begin your second term in office to urge you to give the highest priority to human rights reforms in the period ahead and to ensure that Nigerians across the country are able to enjoy their fundamental rights without fear of violence or discrimination. Your government has repeatedly stated its commitment to human rights, including in the context of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). Human Rights Watch welcomes these statements and is urging you to turn these promises into reality. In particular, we are appealing to you to put an end to the impunity that has protected for too long those who have violated human rights in Nigeria.

Human Rights Watch has been engaged with events in Nigeria for many years. We have been heartened by some developments over the last four years, including greater respect for freedom of expression. However, much remains to be done in the field of human rights, both in terms of remedial and preventive action. We would like to take this opportunity to put forward what we see as some of the areas where government action is needed urgently. We are also enclosing several reports published by Human Rights Watch over the last two years that document these concerns in greater detail and contain recommendations addressed to the Nigerian government.

Oputa Panel

The Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission, known as the Oputa Panel, was welcomed by many inside and outside Nigeria as a sincere and significant effort to shed light on the serious abuses that took place under previous governments. The Oputa Panel submitted its report to your government well over a year ago. We are disappointed to note that neither the report nor any plans to implement its recommendations have been published. This would be an opportune moment to signal your clear intention to make human rights and openness priorities in your government; the publication of the Oputa Panel's report would be an important step towards realizing this goal.

Accountability for grave violations of human rights by the military

In October 2001, several hundred members of the military massacred more than two hundred unarmed civilians in more than seven towns and villages in Benue State. To date, no action has been taken against the members of the security forces responsible, although you acknowledged some responsibility in general apologies issued almost a year later to the leaders and people of Benue. The judicial commission of inquiry established to investigate incidents of violence in Benue and neighboring states has submitted its report to your office, but until now there has been no official public response. Similarly, there has been no action to bring to justice those responsible for the massacre of several hundred people by the military in Odi, Bayelsa State, in November 1999. There can be no justification for the absence of prosecutions for these crimes, which constitute two of the most serious incidents of human rights violations by the military since your government came to power in 1999, and which have been well-documented by Nigerian and international human rights organizations. We urge you to ensure that that those responsible for ordering and carrying out the massacres in Benue and Odi, whatever their rank or position, are identified, charged and tried without delay.

The military has also continued to commit serious abuses in the Niger delta, where it has been mobilized in some areas continuously over the last four years and more. Confrontations between the military and local communities, who frequently protest against oil company operations, environmental degradation and underdevelopment, have led to many human rights violations. The military has responded to community protests (which are sometimes peaceful, but other times take on a violent or criminal nature), with indiscriminate reprisal attacks against entire towns and villages. When inter-communal conflict has erupted in the delta, as well as other areas of the country, the military has often used excessive force in attempting to contain it.

On 4 April 2003, we wrote to you to express our concern about reports of indiscriminate attacks by the military against Ijaw villages in the areas around Warri, in the context of inter-ethnic clashes. In view of the ongoing tensions in the area and the large military presence still deployed there, we remain concerned at the possibility of further outbreaks of violence, including human rights violations by the military against communities perceived as "causing trouble." We urge you to ensure that all members of the security forces, especially those deployed to areas of tension such as the Niger delta, are instructed to respect human rights standards at all times, and only use lethal force where absolutely necessary and as a last resort. Any members of the military suspected to be responsible for violations, including those with command responsibility, should be investigated and prosecuted.

Police reform

While we acknowledge that the high rate of violent crime poses a major challenge to law enforcement in Nigeria, we regret that little action has been taken to date to ensure that the police control crime without systematically violating human rights. We are aware that government officials and the Inspector General of Police have repeatedly announced reforms of the police force. However, to date, the approach to law enforcement still appears to be primarily one of confrontation and violence rather than prevention and respect for the rights of suspects.

Extrajudicial executions by the police remain a chronic problem in Nigeria and the police routinely use excessive force when responding to suspected criminal activities and eruptions of inter-communal violence. Likewise, suspects who are arrested - often arbitrarily - face the prospect of torture, followed by long periods of detention without trial. We are aware of very few cases where members of the police force have been charged and tried in connection with these abuses.

Partly as a response to the police's ineffectiveness in preventing and reducing crime, vigilante groups have developed across Nigeria. However, instead of handing over suspected criminals to the police, groups like the Bakassi Boys and the O'odua People's Congress (OPC) have often killed, tortured and illegally detained suspects, sometimes with the support of state governments. While Human Rights Watch welcomed attempts in 2002 to disband the Bakassi Boys and arrest their members who had committed crimes, we have since been informed that most of those arrested have been released and there have been no prosecutions of members suspected of committing violations. We would be grateful for confirmation from your office on the current status of these cases.

At the same time, police have assaulted and/or detained individuals without evidence of specific criminal wrongdoing, apparently merely for their membership in groups whose self-determination claims are perceived as posing a threat to the government. For example, scores of members of the OPC and of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) have been arrested, detained and extrajudicially killed by the police. The police force should receive clear instructions that they should only carry out arrests when there is evidence of criminal activity, and that freedom of expression, assembly and association should be respected at all times.

We urge you to ensure that all police officers that commit abuses are removed from duty and are prosecuted; members of vigilante groups responsible for human rights abuses should also be charged and tried. To help guarantee accountability within the police force, the Police Service Commission should be adequately funded to enable it to investigate cases of police abuse and ensure police compliance with its findings.

Preventing inter-communal violence

Thousands of Nigerians have been killed in inter-communal conflicts over the last four years, including at least 2,000 in the Kaduna riots of 2000 and around 1,000 people in Jos in September 2001. Since then, there have been numerous other incidents of inter-communal violence in different parts of the country, in which hundreds of people have been killed without any effective intervention to stop the spread of violence. Prosecutions of those suspected to have orchestrated or encouraged this violence remain extremely rare, despite several judicial commissions of inquiry set up by the government. In many cases, these waves of killings, often triggered by a seemingly minor incident, could easily have been prevented through early intervention by state government officials or community leaders to defuse the tension; likewise, many lives could have been saved if the police had responded promptly to protect the population at the first signs of hostility. We deplore the fact that not only have the security forces failed in their duty to protect, but in many instances actually participated in the violence and were responsible for extrajudicial killings themselves - most recently during the riots in Kaduna in November 2002.

Human Rights Watch does not believe that the Nigerian federal government has instigated or deliberately fueled these conflicts in every case. However, we note a lack of concerted, effective action to prevent them. In many cases, hostility between different groups has been directly or indirectly nurtured by the government's failure to address underlying political or economic tensions or claims of marginalization. Many of these communities' grievances are rooted in historical discrimination on the basis of "indigene" or "non-indigene" status - ill-defined concepts that will continue to cause tension until federal and state governments take firm action to eliminate all forms of discrimination on this basis.

In other cases, state or local level politicians or community leaders have exacerbated explosive tensions for their own political gain. Human Rights Watch urges you to ensure that anyone found responsible for organizing or encouraging violence is brought to justice without delay. We also encourage your government, as well as state governments, to make every effort to prevent further violence by addressing existing sources of conflict between communities in an open forum, with the full participation of all parties involved, including civil society groups and community representatives at the local level.

Accountability for political violence

Human Rights Watch has gathered information indicating that hundreds of people were killed or injured in incidents of political violence in the period leading up to and during the elections of April and May 2003. Gangs of otherwise unemployed youths have been used by politicians of various parties, including the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP), to help them achieve power by terrorizing their opponents and intimidating voters during the elections. While Human Rights Watch welcomed statements from your office and other government officials calling for peaceful elections and fair play among political candidates, we are concerned that few of the officials and candidates implicated in incidents of political violence have been investigated or prosecuted. We urge your government to ensure the investigation and prosecution, as appropriate, of any person responsible for incidents of political violence, regardless of that person's party affiliation. This important step would help restore faith in your government's commitment to justice and fairness in the aftermath of the elections that were severely marred by acts of violence and intimidation in several areas.

Human rights concerns in the context of Sharia

Since several northern states introduced Sharia-based criminal codes over the last three years, we have been concerned about a number of legal provisions and practices that violate human rights. Human Rights Watch does not oppose the Sharia system or any other legal system as such. However, there are aspects of the legislation introduced in these states that do not conform to international human rights standards and that violate Nigeria's obligations under international human rights law. These include punishments that constitute torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment, such as floggings, amputations, and death by stoning. Minors (persons under the age of eighteen) have been among those receiving flogging and amputation sentences, some of which have been carried out. We are also particularly concerned at the absence of respect for due process in many trials in Sharia courts, and the fact that defendants have been sentenced to death and other cruel punishments after trials that were blatantly unfair. Defendants have frequently not had legal representation and have not been informed about their rights and legal procedures. Trials and judgments have been affected by corruption of the judiciary and lack of training of judges.

Some of the problems noted above are not limited to the Sharia jurisdictions. We are equally concerned about human rights violations in the context of other legal systems used in Nigeria, where lengthy pre-trial detention and extensive corruption violate the rights to due process and liberty and security of the person, and where the death penalty remains in force.

While we are aware of the sensitivities surrounding the question of Sharia in Nigeria, we encourage your government to take the necessary steps to ensure that the legislation introduced in the last three years is amended to conform to Nigeria's human rights obligations. We also urge you to eliminate provisions for punishments that constitute cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, rather than prolonging suffering and uncertainty for defendants by waiting for each individual case to make its way through the appeal system, and to ensure that due process is respected in all trials. We also urge you to abolish the death penalty throughout Nigeria.

Human Rights Watch hopes that you will implement the reforms outlined above and other measures that would lead to major improvements in the human rights situation in Nigeria. Strengthening the role of the National Human Rights Commission and providing it with adequate funding to monitor and respond to human rights violations would be positive steps toward establishing a culture of respect for human rights. We encourage you to use the next four years to mark a turning point for Nigeria, through the introduction of lasting and wide-ranging human rights reforms.

Sincerely,

Ken Roth
Executive Director
Human Rights Watch

Enclosures:

Human Rights Watch reports: