<<previous  | index  |  next>>

II. Political violence and arrest and harassment of opposition party supporters⁴

The Nigerian government’s unwillingness to tolerate any “real” opposition was starkly illustrated in the months leading up to the 2003 elections. Between April 12 and May 3, 2003, elections were held across the country for the posts of president, state governors, members of the National Assembly and members of state houses of assembly. In the preceding months, from mid-2002 onwards, several hundred people were killed in politically-motivated violence. The victims included high profile political figures, as well as rank-and-file party supporters. While much of this violence was carried out by supporters of the ruling PDP, especially in areas viewed as PDP strongholds, supporters of opposition parties, such as the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP), also launched attacks on their rivals, resulting in deaths and injuries. Most of the major parties hired and armed groups of youths to terrorize their opponents, with the result that in some areas, especially in parts of the south and the southeast, no elections took place at all. The worst violence took place in the months preceding the elections; however, according to information gathered by Human Rights Watch, by Nigerian human rights organizations and by election observers, at least one hundred people were killed and many more injured during the actual election period, in April and May 2003.⁵

Despite these killings—and despite widespread rigging and fraud reported by national and international election observers deployed across the country—the 2003 elections were described as generally peaceful, both by Nigerians and non-Nigerians, and the mostly anonymous victims of this violence were quickly forgotten in the interests of encouraging Nigeria along its path to “democracy”. Official results reported that President Obasanjo and the PDP won the elections with an overwhelming majority. Nigeria’s key foreign partners, while recognizing that there had been fraud and rigging, played down the violence surrounding the elections and failed to denounce it in their public statements. For example, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw described the elections as “a landmark in the advancement of Nigeria’s democracy” and welcomed “the relative calm in which the elections took place,”⁶ while the U.S. government “congratulate[d] the people of Nigeria for what was largely a peaceful expression and exercise of their right to vote […] The widespread violence predicted by many did not happen.”⁷

Such statements by foreign governments have done little to encourage the Nigerian government to end impunity for political violence. President Obasanjo’s numerous pre-election promises to hold to account perpetrators of political violence have remained unfulfilled. Very few of those responsible for ordering or carrying out killings and other attacks on their opponents have been brought to justice, especially in cases of violence instigated by PDP supporters. On the other hand, scores—and possibly hundreds—of members of opposition parties were arrested before, during and after the elections. The majority were members of the ANPP, the largest opposition party. However, in some areas, members of other parties, such as the United Nigeria People’s Party (UNPP) and the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), whose largest support base is in the southeast, were also arrested. The opposition parties have claimed that most of them were not guilty and that these arrests were politically-motivated. Many have since been released without charge.⁸

Human Rights Watch has not been able to verify the circumstances surrounding all these arrests, or whether there was substantial evidence against those detained. The offences of which they were accused ranged from murder, armed robbery, arson and assault to criminal defamation against public officials. However, a clear pattern of arrest and detention of opposition party supporters, combined with the low level of arrest of PDP supporters, many of whom were also responsible for acts of violence and intimidation during the elections, indicates that opposition party supporters were at the very least disproportionately targeted. In addition, the fact that many detained members of opposition parties were released after the elections seems to indicate that the motive for many of these arrests was probably to prevent opposition activity during the elections, rather than to bring perpetrators of violence to justice.

The harassment of opposition party supporters continued after the elections. The Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP)—an umbrella organization of political parties which has become one of the main voices of the opposition in the aftermath of the elections— claimed that on June 23, 2003, “a group of 23 supporters of the presidential candidate of the ANPP, including 11 women who were on their way to Abuja to witness court proceedings in the case instituted by the candidate against the outcome of the election, were arrested on the orders of the Inspector-General of Police and detained without bail for three days. As we write this letter, many more members of the opposition are in illegal detention, some of them since the eve of the elections.”⁹

On July 7, 2003, the police raided the ANPP office in Abuja and arrested several people; they later released them. The police reportedly accused them of organizing a protest at the U.S. embassy on July 3, described below.¹⁰

The police have also tried to prevent the ANPP from organizing rallies and other public events, on the pretext that they did not have police authorization or that the rallies could pose a threat to public security. This happened on at least two occasions in the northern city of Kano, which has been the focus of intense anti-Obasanjo sentiment in recent years. On July 15, 2003, it was reported that twenty-five people were arrested in Kano as crowds gathered for a rally organized by the Buhari organization, the campaign organization of Muhammadu Buhari who was the ANPP presidential candidate during the elections. The police justified the arrests on the basis that the rally had not been granted prior authorization.¹¹ The police also tried to prevent an ANPP rally in Kano on September 23, 2003. Directives to block the rally reportedly came from the police headquarters in Abuja, in particular the Inspector General of Police, who was unhappy with the failure of the Kano State police to stop the event. The police cited “security reasons” as justification for not granting permission to the organizers to hold the rally. Eventually, the rally took place and was addressed by both Muhammadu Buhari and the Kano state governor, Ibrahim Shekarau (also an ANPP member).¹²