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Amnesty International Report 2002 - Nigeria

Covering events from January-December 2001

Federal Republic of Nigeria
Head of state and government: Olusegun Obasanjo
Capital: Abuja
Population: 116.9 million
Official language: English
Death penalty: retentionist
2001 treaty ratifications/signatures: UN Convention against Torture; Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court; African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child

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The security forces continued to act with impunity. They were reported to have extrajudicially executed more than 130 people in one reprisal attack on civilians. At least one person was shot dead by the paramilitary police in the Niger Delta in a reportedly unlawful killing. No one was brought to justice for killings perpetrated by the security forces in previous years. At least four death sentences were passed by High Courts and 24 upheld on appeal. Under new penal codes and laws of criminal procedure inspired by Sharia (Islamic law), which extended the application of cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments, three people were sentenced to death, two by stoning; they were not executed. Several people were sentenced to having their hands amputated, and several floggings were carried out. Vigilante groups, some with explicit backing by state authorities, continued to be responsible for acts of unlawful detention, torture and killings, especially in the southeast. Members of politically active groups were repeatedly detained without trial.

Background

Violent intercommunal clashes increased, leaving hundreds dead and displacing tens of thousands of people internally. Some of the clashes, especially in Kaduna, Kano and Jos, were linked to tensions between Christians and Muslims.

The Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission, known as the Oputa Panel, continued to hear testimonies from witnesses to human rights violations committed between 1966 and the return to civilian rule in May 1999, including during the civil war of 1967 to 1970. Although President Olusegun Obasanjo appeared several times before the Commission, some former military heads of state repeatedly refused to respond to summonses issued by the Commission in its attempts to investigate high-profile cases such as the death in 1986 of journalist Dele Giwa or the 1995 trial and execution of writer Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni activists.

Oil and gas spills in the oil-rich Niger Delta area, often blamed by companies on deliberate damage to equipment such as well-heads and pipelines, frequently led to explosions and fires which killed and injured numerous people. In a number of incidents, gangs of young men attacked and took hostage company employees in Delta and Rivers States. Although some disputes were resolved peaceably through negotiations by company management and the security forces, some provoked intercommunal violence. The root causes of continuing human rights violations in the oil producing areas of Nigeria remained largely unaddressed.

The Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Chief Bola Ige, was murdered in December, apparently in a political assassination.

Killings by the security forces

Nigerian security forces continued to act with impunity and were responsible for at least one extrajudicial execution in the Niger Delta area and large-scale killings in Benue State. No independent investigations were carried out into allegations of excessive use of force or extrajudicial executions made in connection with these incidents, or into other killings by the security forces since the return to civilian rule in May 1999, including in Odi in 1999.

• In June, Friday Nwiido, aged 29, was shot by the paramilitary Mobile Police in Baen, Rivers State, in the Niger Delta area and died during transport to health facilities. He had been in dispute about pay with his former employer, the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC), and the police were looking for him after he was accused of using a company vehicle without permission. He was reportedly unarmed and did not constitute a threat when he was shot as he responded to a request to report to the police.
• On 22 October army officers went to the area around the town of Zaki Biam in Benue State, close to the Taraba State border in central Nigeria, where 19 soldiers had been killed two weeks earlier. They were seeking those responsible and to recover stolen weapons. Soldiers had been based in the area to quell intercommunal violence between the Tiv and Jukun ethnic communities. Over the next few days, more than 130 civilians – women and children among them – were deliberately shot dead or killed as a result of indiscriminate shelling, apparently in reprisal for the killing of the soldiers. Men in several villages in the area were reportedly assembled before being summarily shot. Contradicting early army denials of involvement, officials in Benue and Taraba States, senior police officers, members of the National Assembly, and Nigerian and international human rights organizations, all denounced the killings as extrajudicial executions. The National Assembly set up an inquiry into the killings, but no results had been made public by the end of 2001.

Death penalty

After no death sentences in 2000, at least four death sentences were passed by High Courts and 24 were confirmed on appeal by the Supreme Court. Most followed convictions for murder and some dated back for more than a decade.

At least three death sentences were passed by lower courts under new penal legislation and codes, including new codes of criminal procedure, recently introduced in several states in northern Nigeria and based on Sharia.

The new laws introduced a mandatory death penalty for adultery not previously punishable by death and allowed the application of the death penalty for other sexual offences on a discretionary basis. In some states legislation initially made no requirement for defendants in capital cases to be legally represented in court. Although they are punishable offences, sexual intercourse between members of the same sex, child abuse and adultery do not attract the death penalty under the federal Penal Code for Northern Nigeria, which remains applicable to non-Muslims.

So-called Sharia courts, lower courts in the hierarchy of the Nigerian judicial system, were given jurisdiction to hand down death sentences, a power formerly reserved to the High Courts. Previously, the lower courts used Sharia legal concepts only to determine cases in civil and personal matters. It was unclear to what extent the new legislation guaranteed constitutional rights of appeal to the higher federal courts. Rules of evidence and procedure used in criminal matters in the Sharia courts differed from those applied in the Magistrates' Courts, and discriminated against women.

• Attahiru Umar, aged in his thirties, was sentenced to death by stoning in Kebbi State in September. He was convicted on charges of homosexuality in connection with the sexual abuse of a young boy. No appeal was known to have been made to a higher court. The sentence was not known to have been carried out by the end of 2001.
• In October Safiya Yakubu Hussaini, aged 30, was sentenced to death by stoning in Sokoto State after being convicted of adultery, under a law which violates international standards of human rights. At her first trial she suffered discrimination on the grounds of her gender: she was convicted on the basis of inadequate evidence, including that she was pregnant while reportedly no longer married; however, the court did not investigate the child's paternity or her allegation that she had been raped by a married man. In November she was granted leave to appeal and subsequently appealed to the Sokoto State Sharia Court of Appeal. In December the Federal Minister of Justice publicly declared that she would not be executed. By the end of 2001 no decision had been given on her appeal.
• Sani Yakubu Rodi was convicted of murder in Katsina in November and sentenced to death by hanging. He pleaded not guilty at an initial hearing in July but changed his plea to guilty in September. He did not lodge an appeal.

Cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments

The new laws applicable to Muslims in northern Nigeria also introduced cruel, inhuman or degrading punishments, including amputation of limbs and flogging, for offences such as consumption of alcohol.

Many of those convicted and punished under the new legislation were from an economically deprived background, had received little if any formal education and were unaware of their legal rights of representation and appeal. Provisions for the protection of minors under the Penal Code for Northern Nigeria were not matched in the new penal codes.

Several people were sentenced to have hands amputated for theft or armed robbery. They included at least one child whose sentence was not carried out. At least three amputations took place. Several men and women were sentenced to floggings, mostly following convictions for sexual offences or for the consumption or sale of alcohol. Floggings were routinely carried out, sometimes within hours of conviction.

• In January Bariya Ibrahima Magazu, a teenage mother reportedly under 17 years old, was flogged 100 times with a cane in Zamfara State, after being convicted of pre-marital sexual intercourse in September 2000. She was not legally represented at her trial, and defence lawyers she appointed to lodge an appeal were told by court officials that the sentence would not be carried out before her appeal was heard by a higher court. However, the sentence was carried out before her rights of appeal had been exhausted and before the date given to her lawyers by court officials. Different standards of evidence were applied to her and to the three men she accused of coercing her into having sex with them. The men, all of them married, were not charged, tried or punished.
• In July, 15-year-old Ali Abubakar was convicted of theft in Kebbi State and sentenced to amputation of his hand, despite being a minor. It was unclear whether he had legal representation at his trial. In August, the Special Rapporteur on Women of Nigeria's National Human Rights Commission was given assurances by officials in Kebbi State that the punishment would not be carried out.

Vigilante brutality and killings

Throughout the year vigilante groups were responsible for unlawful detention, acts of violence, torture and killings. In some northern states of Nigeria, local Sharia enforcement committees, also known as Hizba committees, reported alleged offenders of the new penal codes to the police and directly to the new Sharia courts. Their legal status and relationship with the courts remained unclear. In southwest Nigeria, the Oodua People's Congress, an organization promoting Yoruba ethnic interests, was banned in April after members were accused of fomenting violence in which dozens of people died, mostly northerners and including some police officers. In the southeast, some state governments reportedly endorsed the activities of vigilante groups in the fight against crime.

• Members of the so-called Bakassi Boys, legally recognized as the Anambra Vigilante Service and logistically supported by the Anambra State administration, publicly killed four people in January, one person in May and 36 in late June in Onitsha, the state capital. The Anambra State authorities took no action to investigate the killings or to clarify the relationship of the vigilante group with the security forces and the state authorities. Several officers of the police, a federal agency, reportedly died in action against members of the Bakassi Boys.

Political imprisonment

Leading members and supporters of the Oodua People's Congress and the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), two politically active groups campaigning for greater autonomy for their ethnic and territorial constituencies, were arrested on a regular basis, often to be released without trial. Neither organization has clarified its position on the use and advocacy of violence in their political campaigns.

• MASSOB leader Ralph Uwazuruike was arrested several times, the latest in August after he attended a meeting in Lagos. Three other members of the organization were also arrested. They were detained for two weeks before being released without charge or trial.
• Frederick Fasehun and Ganiyu Adams, leaders of two factions of the Oodua People's Congress, were arrested on several occasions. Following the arrests of Frederick Fasehun in September and Ganiyu Adams in October, they were charged with unlawful possession of arms and instigating violence. Both were released on bail and charges were withdrawn in November.

AI country reports/visits

Statement

• Nigeria: Reported reprisal killings by government soldiers must be investigated (AI Index: AFR 44/006/2001)

Visit

An AI delegation visited Nigeria in August to meet government officials and undertake research in Lagos, Abuja and northern Nigeria.