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A Special International Report
Prepared by
The Washington Times
Advertising Department - Published on September 30, 1999
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Sponsors (1) Federal Ministry of Finance
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Righting the wrongs of the past
It was in this spirit that the National Human Rights Commission was established by military decree in 1995. It was charged, among other duties, with the responsibility of monitoring and investigating alleged cases of human rights violations in Nigeria and making appropriate recommendations to the federal government. It was also empowered to deal with all matters related to the promotion and protection of human rights under the Nigerian constitution, the African Charter of Human and People’s Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Despite the dark cloud which shadowed its birth, the Commission has been an attestation to the determination of Nigeria’s people for justice even in the face of great odds.
In its first year, the governing body, led by Justice Paul Nwokedi, toured Nigeria’s prisons, succeeding in freeing many people detained under trumped up charges or whose detention while awaiting trial had long ago exceeded their possible jail terms. Some 200 prisoners were released in Lagos and Kano alone.
The Commission’s report prompted the formation of the Presidential Prison Decongestion and Reform Committee, credited with having secured better conditions for the prisoners and the release of some 2,000 people in the last three years.
Perhaps one of its greatest accomplishments, however, was to raise awareness among the police, immigration, gender groups, politicians and non-governmental organizations through a series of seminars and workshops held in conjunction with some of the country’s leading human rights groups, such as the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO), Constitutional Rights Project and international agencies.
But, as the new democratic administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo has rightly recognized, true change can only come when the baggage of the past has been opened, dealt with and ultimately left behind. So in an effort to move forward, the president inaugurated a seven-member panel on human rights abuses, headed by retired Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, to investigate the past. His decision, the president said, was consistent with his administration’s policy of openness and transparency.
“We want to reconcile those who feel alienated by past injustices, heal the wounds inflicted on our people and restore harmony in our country,” the president said. “We want the injured and the seemingly injured to be reconciled with their oppressors or seeming oppressors.”
The decision not to empower the Commission with the task reflects the administration’s commitment to distance itself from any association that smacks of the military past. The feeling was that people might not have the same level of confidence in the exercise, given the Commission’s somewhat ambiguous history.
“In some ways they were party to what was happening,” Optua said. “They raised their voices but they were not heard. I don’t know whether they were audible enough.” So, Oputa said, the administration decided “it was better to have a fresh, independent panel.”
CLO President Ayo Obe commends the decision. “It would not have been satisfactory to use the Commission. People still see it as a child of Abacha. We need something outside that could look into the past.”
The period under scrutiny is from 1984 – when the last democratic dispensation in the country was aborted – through 1999. The panel must help move the country forward from “an unprecedented wickedness and oppressive era in our history,” Obasanjo said. At the same time, he urged the panel to propose measures to help the move and to prevent such a period from recurring.
For many Nigerians, the panel is symbolic of their country’s new democratic turn. “Military government is not a rule, it is an exception to the rule,” Oputa explained. “Democracy is suspended so there is the possibility and actuality of force.” That Oputa says, can and will no longer be the case.
Instituting Accountability
Commenting on the panel, Wole Soyinka, Nobel Laureate and Chairman of the Steering Council of the United Democratic Front of Nigeria (UDNF), said: “Obasanjo has got this one right. Its timing is laudable – human rights commission, truth tribunal or whatever it is as we have repeatedly stressed, is the priority of priorities after the experience under recent dictatorships.”
Under the terms of the panel, evidence of human rights violations will be established, violators will be held accountable, and recommendations will be made to avoid such occurrences in the future. The panel will also be responsible for determining whether the violations were, among other things, the product of deliberate state policy, institutions, individuals or political organizations.
“The main goal is to reconcile,” Oputa said. “This will achieve much more than being vindictive.”
Though some people have called for severe punishments for those found guilty of abuses under the panel, Oputa believes this will not help the country to move forward. “An eye for an eye will only leave the country blind,” he said.
Since the panel began accepting petitions in June, several thousand claims have been received, dealing with a myriad of human rights issues such as torture, false imprisonment and unlawful termination. “When the liberty of the subject, his essential freedoms, are tampered with you have a human rights abuse,” Oputa explained.
Although in an open letter to the chairman, CLO President Ayo Obe and Executive Director Abdul Oroh expressed disappointment at the structure of the panel, they nonetheless commended its activities.
“Although CLO had, in the hope of better attaining the goal, asked for a Judicial Commission of Inquiry backed by an Act of the National Assembly, we are nevertheless optimistic that a great deal in the way of uncovering the atrocities perpetrated by the military regimes of the past 15 years might yet be achieved. We feel that even if just half of these atrocities are completely investigated and the ready servants of evil behind them brought to book, a bold statement on our collective will not to ever again allow the horrendous past to repeat itself in our dear country will have been made.”
Obe said CLO has encouraged people to submit reports and complaints not only to bring attention to their plight but also to ensure the panel sees the size of the problem. “Then they will know which powers they will need to demand from the government to do their job.”
Most important, said Obe, is to know what happened. “Nigerians are very ready to forget wrongs in the past and that is what has encouraged things to go on. It is good that we have opened the door so there will be fresh air.”
Obasanjo’s government is determined to make sure that door never again swings shut.
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Table of Contents (1) It's a new dawn over Nigeria |
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Timing can be cruelly ironic. What else could explain why the late General Sani Abacha, Nigeria’s single most ruthless military dictator, chose his administration to fulfill Nigeria’s commitment to the United Nations and the Organization for African Unity to inaugurate a national institution to promote and protect human rights.