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Amnesty International Report 2004 - Nigeria

Covering events from January - December 2003

The sentence of death by stoning passed on Amina Lawal continued to attract massive international condemnation and was quashed on appeal. However, laws still allowed the imposition of death sentences for sexually related offences, amputations for theft and floggings for consuming alcohol. Little action was taken by the federal government to end the discrimination against women and denial of fundamental freedoms under Sharia-inspired penal legislation in force in 12 northern states. Officials at state and local levels were accused of using vigilante forces to instigate violence for political purposes. The government failed to hold independent investigations into reports of unlawful killings by the armed forces.

Background

President Olusegun Obasanjo and the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) won the majority of votes in elections for the National Assembly in April and for the President and State Governors in May. Forged voter registration cards were produced on a vast scale and the elections were marred by fraud and violence (see below).

Appellate courts overturned four death sentences passed by courts in northern states under new penal legislation since 1999 inspired by Sharia (Islamic law) (see below). Concerns were raised in the parliamentary debate on the death penalty about the imposition of the death penalty under that legislation. The new Sharia penal laws continued to criminalize behaviour termed as "zina". In one state, zina was defined as sexual intercourse with any person "over whom [the perpetrator] has no sexual rights" and in circumstances "in which no doubt exists as to the illegality of the act".

Offences defined in this way were used to deny both women and men their rights to privacy and to freedom of expression and association, and in practice frequently to deny women access to justice. Rules of evidence discriminating against women continued to be applied, putting women at greater risk of conviction on charges of zina. Trials under the new laws were grossly unfair, refusing basic rights of defence to the most poor and vulnerable individuals.

Death penalty and other cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment

No executions were carried out during the year. Death sentences were passed both by the high courts and by Sharia courts in northern Nigeria. The new Sharia penal laws have changed the punishment for Muslims convicted of zina crimes from flogging to a mandatory death penalty, and have extended jurisdiction in capital cases to the lowest courts in the Sharia judicial system.

• Jibrin Babaji was sentenced to death by stoning on 14 September by a Sharia court in Bauchi, northwest Nigeria, after being convicted under Sharia penal law of "sodomy" involving three minors. He was not represented by a lawyer and was convicted by a single judge. He had legal counsel at his appeal hearing in December, which had not concluded by the end of 2003.

Sentences of death by stoning passed in previous years continued to be a focus for worldwide criticism.

• On 25 September the Upper Sharia Court of Appeal of Katsina State in northern Nigeria overturned the sentence of death by stoning passed on Amina Lawal at Bakori in March 2002. The court ruled that neither her conviction nor her confession was legally valid, and that no offence had been established. She had been convicted of zina after bearing a child outside marriage, and the death sentence had been upheld by a lower Sharia court of appeal.

• In August the Sharia Court of Appeal in Dutse, Jigawa State, dismissed a sentence of death by stoning on Sarimu Mohamed Baranda, aged 54. The court allowed an appeal by his relatives on the grounds that he was suffering from a mental illness and ordered his admission to hospital. He had been sentenced to death in July 2002 after he confessed to raping a nine-year-old child, a confession he said later had been made under duress.

Others still faced the death penalty at the end of 2003 for alleged acts of zina.

• An appeal against a sentence of death by stoning passed on Fatima Usman and Ahmadu Ibrahim in May 2002 was still pending at the end of 2003 after it was indefinitely adjourned in June by the Sharia Court of Appeal in Minna, Niger State. The couple were initially sentenced to five years' imprisonment for zina by a secular lower court. A court in New Gawu imposed the death penalty in May 2002, in their absence, after Fatima Usman's father complained to the state's Islamic authorities that the first sentence was too light. The federal authorities recognized only the first sentence, however, and refused to hand the couple over to the Islamic authorities. In October 2002 they were released on humanitarian grounds to await the appeal.

President Obasanjo initiated a parliamentary debate on the death penalty in November. The National Study Group on the Death Penalty was set up to produce recommendations on the status of the death penalty in the Constitution.

AI worked with a local human rights organization to support prisoners under sentence of amputation after being convicted in Sokoto State. They were all unfairly tried, without legal representation, and were unable to lodge appeals before higher courts in the Sharia judicial system. Their cases will now be reviewed by the Sharia Court of Appeal in Sokoto State.

Women and human rights

In May a bill on violence against women was introduced in parliament. It aimed to prohibit forms of violence such as harmful traditional practices and domestic violence, including marital rape. Courts would be able to issue protective orders prohibiting abusers from approaching or threatening victims of violence. A Commission on Violence Against Women, to include representatives from religious organizations and non-governmental women's organizations, would monitor implementation of the law and provide rape crisis centres and shelters for victims.

The Nigerian government and Shell and Chevron-Texaco oil companies rejected the findings of an AI investigation into allegations of excessive use of force against women human rights activists in the Niger Delta. Soldiers and paramilitary Mobile Police officers were reported to have tear gassed, kicked and gun whipped seated women demonstrators, some of them elderly, outside oil company premises in Warri, Delta State, on 8 August 2002. Neither the government nor the oil companies carried out independent investigations into the allegations.

Women in the region continued to face harassment for demanding compensation for environmental degradation and development assistance for communities living in extreme poverty.

• On 22 May Alice Ukoko, who was reportedly assaulted on 8 August 2002, was briefly detained by the Delta State security services and questioned about plans to organize women's demonstrations and interrupt the governor's swearing-in ceremony. Shortly before her arrest, she and other women had formally applied to the Inspector General of Police, head of the national police force, for permission to demonstrate about the conduct of the security forces. Permission was not granted and the demonstration did not take place.

Killings and ill-treatment by police

In other cases in which the security forces used excessive force or unlawful lethal force, the government failed to conduct independent investigations.

• At least four people were reportedly killed in Lagos in clashes between the police and civilians during countrywide protests and strikes against a sharp fuel price increase. A 27-year-old man, Obot Akpan Etim, was shot dead during one reportedly peaceful protest. An eyewitness to a protest in Oshodi, Lagos, on 7 July reported that hundreds of peaceful protesters, chanting and shouting slogans, were charged and tear gassed by the police without warning. Police and city officials denied any wrongdoing by the police, blaming demonstrators for the deaths. Detainees held by the police were routinely subjected to harsh conditions in custody and denied their constitutional rights to be promptly charged or released.

• Festus Keyamo, a lawyer and leader of the Movement for the Actualization of the Future Republic of the Niger Delta, was detained without charge or trial for more than a month. He had called for wider autonomy for the Niger Delta region after President Obasanjo declined to approve allocating Niger Delta states a percentage of offshore oil revenues. He was held incommunicado and moved to various places of detention following his arrest on 28 December 2002.

Held at police headquarters in the capital, Abuja, he threatened a hunger strike to protest at inadequate food, clothing and medical care. He was released on police bail on 3 February and charges were later withdrawn.

Political violence

In the months before federal and state elections in April and May, there was an increase in political assassinations and violent clashes in which party supporters died. An increasing flow of firearms into Nigeria and the creation of armed vigilante groups enabled politicians to foment political violence at local and state levels. Members of state governments and houses of assembly were reportedly implicated in the harassment and intimidation of rival candidates and their followers.

State-endorsed armed vigilante groups were responsible for large numbers of extrajudicial executions in the southeast, and suspected of involvement in a number of unsolved killings of politicians.

• Marshall Harry, National Vice Chairman of the main opposition party, the All Nigeria People's Party (ANPP), was killed when armed men entered his home in Abuja on 5 March. On 10 February Ogbonaya Uche, an ANPP candidate for the Senate, died days after he had been shot by unidentified armed men at his home in Owerri, Imo State.

• In November at least 12 people, including former members of a vigilante group, were charged with the murders of Barnabas Igwe, chairman of the Onitsha branch of the Nigerian Bar Association, and his wife Amaka in September 2002.

• In March the trial started of 12 detainees charged in October 2002 in connection with the murder of Attorney General and Minister of Justice Bola Ige in December 2001.

Impunity

Nigeria continued to foster impunity, failing to bring to justice not only those responsible for human rights violations in Nigeria but also individuals charged with grave offences under international law. Human rights violations by the Nigerian armed forces under the present government, particularly the killing of civilians at Odi, Bayelsa State, in 1999 and in Benue State in 2001, remained uninvestigated.

The findings of the Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission, known as the Oputa Panel, were still not made public. Established in 1999 to investigate human rights violations committed between 1966 and the return to civilian rule in 1999, it reported the findings of its public hearings and investigations in May 2002 to President Obasanjo. The government had not published the report or its recommendations, and had made no public statement about plans for implementing the recommendations by the end of 2003.

Impunity for Charles Taylor

In August Liberian President Charles Taylor relinquished power and left Liberia for Nigeria with implicit guarantees from the Nigerian government that he would be neither prosecuted in Nigeria nor surrendered to the Special Court for Sierra Leone. In June an international warrant for his arrest had been issued after he was indicted by the Special Court for war crimes, crimes against humanity and other serious violations of international humanitarian law during Sierra Leone's internal armed conflict. These crimes included killings, mutilations, rapes and the use of child soldiers by Sierra Leone armed opposition forces that he had supported. President Obasanjo argued that allowing Charles Taylor to travel to Nigeria was in the interests of securing a political settlement to Liberia's conflict. In early December, Interpol allowed worldwide circulation of the arrest warrant against Charles Taylor with a view to extradition. AI protested that the Nigerian government had violated its obligations under international law, but calls for Charles Taylor to be surrendered to the Special Court or investigated with a view to criminal or extradition proceedings in Nigerian courts were ignored.

AI country visits

AI delegates visited Nigeria in March to research political violence in the context of the elections, Sharia penal legislation and women's human rights.