Amnesty International Report 1997 - Nigeria

Prisoners of conscience and possible prisoners of conscience remained imprisoned throughout the year. Many were detained without charge or trial and some had been convicted in unfair political trials. Prisoners were subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, including harsh conditions of imprisonment. There was at least one killing which appeared to be an extrajudicial execution. At least 12 prisoners were sentenced to death and 14 were executed. Under the military government's timetable for a return to civilian rule by October 1998, local government elections on a non-party basis were held in March. In September, five political parties were registered but the main pro-democracy opposition was effectively excluded. Further local government elections, due to be contested by the registered parties in December, were postponed until 1997. Repressive military decrees which overturn the rule of law and allow the arbitrary detention of prisoners of conscience remained in force. In March and April, the UN Secretary-General sent a mission to Nigeria to investigate the unfair political trials which resulted in the execution for murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other members of the Ogoni ethnic group in November 1995 (see Amnesty International Report 1996). It recommended fundamental reforms to bring the Civil Disturbances Special Tribunal, the special court which had conducted the trials, into line with international standards for fair trial. However, the government's subsequent measures left intact its control of the tribunal, including the direct appointment of its members, a right of appeal only to another government-appointed special tribunal, and government confirmation of convictions and sentences. In June, the government appointed a National Human Rights Commission which had power only to make recommendations to the Head of State. A detention review panel was appointed in October but it was not an independent, judicial body. It was headed by senior security officials and its reviews were conducted in secret. The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, which had decided in December 1995 to send a mission, was unable to reach agreement with the authorities on dates. In March, the UN Human Rights Commission requested its Special Rapporteurs on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions and on the independence of judges and lawyers, to conduct investigations in Nigeria, but they had been unable to obtain access to the country by the end of the year. In July, the UN Human Rights Committee criticized the Nigerian Government for a wide range of human rights violations and urged it to repeal military decrees which suspend fundamental rights. In October, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution expressing concern about continued human rights abuses and calling on the Nigerian Government to cooperate with the international community and abide by its international treaty commitments to uphold human rights. In November, the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, set up after the Ogoni executions, visited Nigeria briefly for government talks after being denied access to conduct a fact-finding mission earlier in the year. The mission was not allowed to meet political prisoners. There were several deaths and scores were arrested following religious conflict in northern Nigeria. In August, three people were killed in clashes between rival muslim groups, and in September at least two died in unrest between Christians and Muslims in Kafanchan. At least seven more died when police tried to disperse protests over the arrests of Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, a Muslim Shi'ite leader, and about 20 supporters. The police accused Ibrahim El-Zakzaky of inciting unrest, but he was still detained without charge or trial and incommunicado in Port Harcourt, southeast Nigeria, at the end of the year. More than 100 Shi'ite demonstrators arrested in September were charged with offences ranging from illegal assembly to murder, but had not been brought to trial by the end of the year. Some were reportedly arrested for non-violent protests. The government blamed pro-democracy activists for a number of bomb attacks throughout the year in which several people were killed. It accused the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), led by former government officials and political leaders, and the National Council for the Liberation of Nigeria, an exile group led by Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, of responsibility for some of the attacks. Key human rights defenders remained imprisoned throughout the year. Moshood Abiola, winner of the 1993 presidential elections, had been imprisoned since June 1994, ostensibly awaiting trial for treason but denied access to his family, lawyers and doctor. Others continued to be held without charge or trial, usually incommunicado. Frank Kokori, former Secretary General of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, was still held in incommunicado detention nearly two and a half years after a major oil workers' strike in mid-1994. In January, the Internal Security Task Force, the joint military/mobile police force which has occupied Ogoniland since April 1994, detained at least 20 and possibly as many as 100 supporters of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People who were commemorating Ogoni Day. Before and during the UN mission in March and April, defenders of human rights in Ogoniland were detained without charge or trial, apparently to prevent them from speaking to the delegation. Those detained included Anyakwee Nsirimovu, head of the Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Port Harcourt. In June, Nnimmo Bassey, an environmental rights campaigner, was arrested and detained without charge or trial for a few weeks, apparently to stop him attending an international meeting of environmentalists. The authorities denied reports of further arrests in August before a proposed visit by Commonwealth Ministers. At least 19 Ogoni possible prisoners of conscience remained held in harsh prison conditions throughout the year. Most were detained in mid-1994 and were allegedly ill-treated after their arrest. They faced trial by the Civil Disturbances Special Tribunal on identical murder charges to those which were used to execute the nine Ogoni in 1995. In July, some were allowed a supervised meeting with their lawyer and were brought before a magistrates' court to be remanded in custody. In August, two of their defence lawyers were arrested in court and charged with obstructing the police when photographs were taken of the prisoners in court. In December, the High Court in Port Harcourt rejected an application for the prisoners' release on the grounds that the evidence of their torture and ill-treatment was hearsay. There was still no independent inquiry into the death in detention of one of the group, Clement Tusima, in 1995. There were reports of at least 20 further detentions in Ogoniland in the period leading up to the first anniversary of the November 1995 executions, and the authorities announced that security operations had successfully prevented public commemorations. In December, the authorities detained a number of pro-democracy leaders, including two leading members of NADECO, 63-year-old lawyer Chief Olabiyi Durojaiye and former government minister Dr Olu Falae, and Dr Frederick Fasheun, a medical practitioner and Acting Chairman of the Campaign for Democracy. They were still detained incommunicado without charge or trial at the end of the year. Ayodele Anselm Akele, Chairman of the Campaign for Independent Unions, was also detained for a few days twice in December and questioned about trade union and political activities, and the bombings, before being released without charge. Most of those convicted of treason and related offences in grossly unfair trials by Special Military Tribunal in 1995 were still imprisoned at the end of the year. Many were held in harsh conditions in prisons far from their homes. Many suffered ill health caused by malnutrition and inadequate medical care. They included several prisoners of conscience, notably retired General Olusegun Obasanjo, a former head of state, and his deputy, retired Major-General Shehu Musa Yar'Adua, imprisoned for 15 years and life respectively because of their public advocacy of political rights and a swift return to civilian government. Leading human rights activist Dr Beko Ransome-Kuti, Chairman of the Campaign for Democracy, and Shehu Sanni, his deputy, both serving 15-year sentences, remained in harsh conditions in prisons hundreds of miles from their homes. A number of political detainees were freed during the year. Most had been detained incommunicado without charge or trial, some for more than 18 months, and they were released without explanation. In June, during its first meeting with Commonwealth Ministers, the government announced the release of seven political detainees, although it later emerged that some had been released several months earlier and others were not actually released until October. Abdul Oroh, Executive Director of the Civil Liberties Organisation, and Dr Olatunji Abayomi, head of Human Rights Africa, were among those released in June, having been detained without charge or trial since August 1995. In July, 11 former soldiers imprisoned since a coup attempt in April 1990 were released. Most had been convicted after being tried three times by Special Military Tribunal in secret and grossly unfair trials in 1990; others were reportedly redetained after acquittal by the same tribunal. In November, three human rights defenders who had been detained incommunicado without charge or trial for nearly a year were released on the occasion of the Commonwealth Ministers' visit to Nigeria. Veteran civil rights campaigner Chief Gani Fawehinmi had been held from January to November. Chief Fawehinmi had been a member of the team of defence lawyers who withdrew from the Ogoni trials in protest at government interference, and had challenged the legality of the November 1995 Ogoni executions and the constitutionality of the Civil Disturbances Special Tribunal which passed the death sentences. The courts repeatedly adjourned hearings on these legal actions throughout the year. Also released were Femi Falana, another of the defence lawyers in the Ogoni trial, and Femi Aborisade, a labour activist and leading member of the National Conscience Party. Prison conditions remained harsh and life-threatening for most prisoners. Gani Fawehinmi required emergency hospital treatment for pneumonia on five occasions as a result of the conditions in which he was held for 11 months. No independent or judicial inquiry was carried out into allegations that the security forces had shot dead at least two boys who were demonstrating support for Ogoni Day and wounded several others. In June, Alhaja Kudirat Abiola, senior wife of Moshood Abiola, was killed in what appeared to be an extrajudicial execution by government agents. She had remained outspoken in support of her husband despite having been denied access to him since 1994, being arrested and prosecuted for publishing allegedly subversive material, and receiving death threats. Suspicions about government involvement were not allayed when it failed to set up an independent inquiry into her killing and arrested more than 20 members of the Abiola family and four leading NADECO members, holding them in harsh conditions before releasing them uncharged after several weeks. Former Senator Abraham Adesanya, a 74-year-old lawyer, and two other NADECO elders were detained as prisoners of conscience for four months without charge or trial in defiance of court orders. There was a sharp reduction in the number of executions, which had totalled more than 200 in 1994 and 1995. At least 12 prisoners were sentenced to death and 14 were executed following convictions by Robbery and Firearms Tribunals, special courts which allow no right of judicial appeal. Executions were carried out in public by firing-squad. In January, an Assistant Commissioner of Police, a police sergeant and three others convicted of involvement in armed robberies were executed before a crowd of more than 2,000 near Birnin Kebbi, northern Nigeria. Following the November 1995 executions and renewed repression in January 1996 in Ogoniland, Ogoni refugees fled to neighbouring Benin until the Nigerian Government increased security at the border. The Government of Benin gave asylum to about a thousand, who included relatives of the nine executed men. Throughout the year, Amnesty International appealed for the release of prisoners of conscience, for the fair trial and humane treatment of all political prisoners, for an end to the death penalty and for an investigation into the killing of Kudirat Abiola. In November, the organization launched a worldwide campaign, publishing reports which documented the attack on human rights defenders and advocated a 10-point program for human rights reform in Nigeria. In May and November, Amnesty International personnel visited Nigeria for research and membership development. Requests for visas for four other visits by Amnesty International staff to undertake research, membership development and to hold talks with the government were denied. During the November visit, an Amnesty International staff member and two local Amnesty International officers were questioned for 12 hours after being detained while on their way to a meeting with foreign diplomats. The staff member was deported, and for several days in a row the two others had to spend the day at a police station.