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V. Harassment of human rights organizations and individuals suspected of providing information to them

While most of the time, Nigerian human rights organizations and other civil society groups are allowed to carry out their activities without systematic hindrance, there have been several cases where the authorities have put obstacles in their way, apparently with a view to intimidating them.

On April 30, 2003, Okechukwu Nwanguma, coordinator of the southeast zone of the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO), Nigeria’s largest and oldest human rights organization, was subjected to intense questioning, threats and intimidation for several hours by the police in the southeastern city of Enugu. The incident was connected with a letter documenting arbitrary arrests, corruption and other abuses by the police in Enugu State, which the CLO had sent to the Inspector General of Police on March 1, 2003; the letter was signed by Okechukwu Nwanguma.⁴¹ Nwanguma received a letter dated April 28 asking him to come for an interview with the Enugu State Deputy Commissioner of Police. Believing the interview was intended to shed more light on the cases of abuse raised by the CLO, he went to meet the Deputy Commissioner of Police in Enugu on April 30. He was then interrogated for several hours by six police officers, including the Deputy Commissioner himself. Their behaviour was clearly intended to intimidate and humiliate him. They tried to dictate the contents of his statement and prevented his lawyer from being present while his statement was taken. They accused him of fighting the police and of harbouring criminals, and stated that “a complainant could be turned into an accused”. The Deputy Commissioner threatened to charge him with an unspecified offence. The police officers complained about the fact that the CLO had written directly to the Inspector General of Police, rather than raising the incidents of abuse directly with the individual police divisions or state police command in Enugu, even though the CLO had done so and not received any satisfactory response from the state police on previous occasions.⁴² The following week, when Nwanguma returned to the police station with his lawyer, one of the police officers warned him to be careful because he was a young man—a warning which he interpreted as a further threat.⁴³

Human Rights Watch wrote to the Enugu state commissioner of police and the Inspector General of Police on May 9, 2003, asking for an immediate investigation into this incident and for assurances that human rights activists are able to conduct their work freely and without fear for their safety. We received a reply dated October 14 from the principal staff officer to the Inspector General of Police in Abuja. The reply does not address Human Rights Watch’s main concern, which was the intimidating and threatening manner in which Nwanguma was treated by the police. Instead, it attempts to discredit Nwanguma and the CLO’s initial letter about police abuses, claiming that Nwanguma failed to produce any evidence to substantiate the CLO’s allegations.⁴⁴

In August 2002, the Lagos-based nongovernmental organization Centre for Law Enforcement Education (CLEEN), in conjunction with the Geneva-based World Organisation against Torture (Organisation mondiale contre la torture, OMCT), published a book entitled “Hope Betrayed? A report on impunity and state-sponsored violence in Nigeria.” The book is composed of chapters by different authors, many of them human rights activists, describing case studies of targeted killings in Nigeria and the impunity which has protected the perpetrators, particularly members of the security forces. The book was launched by CLEEN and OMCT with a press conference in Lagos, which was not disrupted by the authorities. However, a consignment of several hundred copies of the book, sent from Geneva, was intercepted at customs in Lagos, and blocked there. The two organizations put repeated pressure for the release of the books, in vain. On October 2002, CLEEN received a letter from the Lagos-based transport company which stated: “[…] Nigeria Customs at M.M. Cargo still refused to release cargo due to the perceived political undertone of the book and hence required clearance letter from the Controller General of Customs Abuja through you before the cargo can be released.”⁴⁵ One year later, in October 2003, the books have still not been released. In June 2003, CLEEN launched a court case against the board of customs and excise, which is due to be heard by the Federal High Court in Lagos; the date of the hearing was not yet known. ⁴⁶

In October 2002, at least three contributors to the book were called in for questioning by the SSS; two were members of the CLO, and the third was a member of the National Human Rights Commission (a body set up by the government in 1996 to monitor human rights developments and advise the government on human rights policies). SSS officials visited the Lagos office of CLO on several occasions, without specifying why they were looking for the staff members concerned. They also visited CLEEN’s office in Lagos and questioned the executive director extensively.⁴⁷

Between December 3 and 6, 2002, the SSS seized the passports of several members of Nigerian civil society organizations and prevented them from travelling. On December 3, Tajudeen Abdul Raheem, chairperson of the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) and Secretary General of the Pan-African Movement, was stopped at Lagos airport as he was about to travel to London. Members of the SSS confiscated his passport and kept it for three days. They told him that they had stopped him because his name was on their watchlist; however, they did not provide any explanation as to why it was on their watchlist or why he was not allowed to travel. Subsequently, the SSS told him that his name had been on their list “for a long time,” meaning that he was among those blacklisted by previous governments; evidently the current government had never reviewed that list or questioned its existence. The director of the SSS apologized about the incident and blamed it on bureaucracy.⁴⁸ In the following days, the SSS at Lagos airport seized the passports of several other activists, including Jiti Ogunye, secretary of the National Association of Democratic Lawyers, and Iheoma Obibi, director of Alliances of Africa. Iheoma Obibi, who holds a British passport, was stopped at Lagos Airport on December 6, along with her five-year-old son. She was told that there were instructions from Abuja that she needed official security clearance before being allowed to travel, but was not given any explanation as to why. SSS officials took her passport, as well as her son’s, and destroyed their boarding cards. Iheoma Obibi and her son were released about six hours later and asked to return to the SSS for interrogation on the following Monday.⁴⁹

On July 22, 2003, Human Rights Watch published a report on killings during the riots in Kaduna in November 2002, following protests at the Miss World beauty contest which had been due to take place in Nigeria.⁵⁰ A large section of the report described killings by the security forces, particularly the police, during the days of rioting. In the days immediately after the publication of the report, from late July until mid August 2003, the police in Kaduna harassed at least two people whom they suspected of having provided information to Human Rights Watch on specific incidents of killings by the police, which were documented in detail in the report. On July 24, they arrested a man, accused him of giving information and photographs to Human Rights Watch and asked him why he had done this. They released him the same day, then called him again, and on at least three further occasions within a short period. On these subsequent occasions, they did not question him again, but kept him in the police station for the whole day leaving him alone in a room; they let him go at the end of the day. Another man was also questioned about why he had provided information to Human Rights Watch.⁵¹

In September, Human Rights Watch wrote to the Kaduna state governor and the police asking for assurances that individuals suspected of providing information on human rights violations are not intimidated or harmed, and reminding them of their obligation to investigate the killings and bring to justice those responsible. By November 2003, no reply had been received.⁵²