NIGERIA
Combined second and
third periodic reports dated 26 February 1997
The Federal Republic of Nigeria is located on the southern
coast of West Africa. Divided into thirty states and a federal
capital territory, Abuja, the population of Nigeria is estimated
to be approximately 104 million people, making it the most populous
country on the African continent.1
Approximately ninety percent of the population is a member of
one of the ten ethnic groups: the Hausa, Fulani, Yoruba, Ibibio,
Edo, Tiv, Nupe, Ibo, Kanuri, and Ijaw.2
The official language is English. Hausa is the most widely spoken
of the 250 African languages in Nigeria, followed by Yoruba
and Ibo.3 Approximately
half of the population is Muslim, about thirty-five percent
are Christian, and the remainder adhere to the traditional beliefs
of their ethnic groups.
Political Structure
Nigeria is constitutionally a federalist state, with certain
powers held by the states and others reserved to the federal
government. According to the Constitution, the president is
to be elected every four years by popular vote, and the judiciary
is to consist of state and federal courts. However, the country's
history has been marked by constitutional chaos, including a
number of coups, a series of military leaders (who frequently
take the title of president), and problematic elections. The
last civilian president to take office after a free election
was Alhaji Shehu Shagari, elected in 1979. In 1985, Major General
Ibrahim Babangida, became president4
after a coup and declared a plan to revive civilian rule with
elections in October 1990.5
However, Babangida held on to the presidency until 1993, when
elections were held and Moshood Abiola, a civilian and the publisher
of the Concord newspaper, claimed victory.6
Banbangida charged fraud in the election, the results were annulled,
and Abiola was jailed under accusation of treason-as he still
is, despite court orders granting bail.7
His health is deteriorating.8
Shortly after the annulled election, General Sani Abacha became
president in yet another coup. 9
General Abacha's rule has been characterized as an "expression
of hardline northern military elite bent on maintaining its
longtime hold on the country's politics."10
Fearing coup attempts, Abacha rarely leaves his mansion and
surrounds himself with a 2000-man personal security service
that answers only to the president or his single trusted aid,
Major Hamza El-Mustapha.11
He is heavily guarded by soldiers and maintains a separate string
of plain-clothed police agents.12
He does not tolerate criticism; suspecting General Olusegun
Obasanjo and General Shehu Musa Yar'Adua13
of "lamenting the state of affairs in Nigeria at a conference
in Stockholm in 1995,"14
plotting a coup against him, and demanding restraints on the
president's power, he had both men arrested and placed in detention.
On December 6, 1997, Yar'Adua died in detention.15
Human rights organizations contend that he was repeatedly denied
medical care.16
Elections for the presidency are to be held in August 1998
after several postponements. General Abacha is the candidate
of all five approved parties. A lawsuit challenging this selection
process, charging intervention by the government, was dismissed
in Lagos on May 25, 1998.17
Human Rights
Nigeria's political setting cannot be understood without an
examination of the country's dismal human rights situation.
The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, the United
Nations, Amnesty International (AI), the Organization of African
Unity (OAU), and the International Center Against Censorship,
an international human rights organization committed to the
protection and promotion of freedom of expression, have all
criticized the government's human rights record. In June 1996,
the International Center Against Censorship sent a letter to
General Abacha, expressing concern about the continuing of secret
trials against alleged military conspirators, the execution
of nine Ogoni minority rights activists, and the disregard for
the right to freedom of expression, as direct violations of
Nigeria's obligations as a party to the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights and to the African Charter on
Human and Peoples' Rights.18
The nine members of the Ogoni ethnic group were sentenced to
death by the Civil Disturbances Special Tribunal (CDST) based
on their alleged connection with the killings of four Ogoni
notables at Giokoo in May 1994.19
The Center also complained about the arbitrary use of the 1984
State Security Decree No. 2,20
to detain Nigerians who voice their opposition to the continuation
of military rule.21 Among
the nearly 200 people currently detained for political reasons,
Rebecca Onyabi Ikpe represents the numerous women held hostage
because either their relatives are government critics, they
expressed their own political views (nonviolently), or they
are connected to a political opposition group.22
Rebecca Onyabi Ikpe is considered to be a prisoner of conscience,
convicted in July 1995 of treason and other related offenses
by a secret military tribunal. Amnesty International claims
that the human rights abuses suffered by these prisoners include
forced detention, torture, extra-judicial execution, and denial
of medical treatment. Beko Ransome-Kuti, a prominent human rights
activist, Moshood Abiola, and several journalists remain in
prison under allegations of sedition, criticizing the government,
conspiracy or being an accessory to the plotters.23
In April 1997 the United Nations Commission on Human Rights
voted to appoint a Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation
in Nigeria, citing concern over widespread abuses of citizens,
lack of judicial safeguards, and an absence of progress on democratic
reforms.24
Media
For the last several years, journalists have been threatened
with arrest, torture, forced exile, and assassination for their
publications detailing either government scandals, coup plots,
corruption or tension within the armed forces.25
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a US-based
advocacy group, while Nigeria has the most diverse press in
Africa, the country has experienced "the most extreme deterioration
of conditions for the press in Africa."26
There are approximately sixty-six major newspapers and sixty
periodically published newsmagazines in the country.27
Additionally, Nigeria has fifty state-owned television stations
and forty state-owned radio stations.28
Journalists who freely express their views regarding the internal
politics of the military government do so at the risk of losing
not only their own lives, but the life of the medium for which
they report. Tell, Nigeria's most effective news magazine, cannot
be published in a conventional office. On at least two occasions,
Nigerian authorities raided its printing offices, confiscating
the available copies of the magazine.29
Currently, Tell's editorial meetings are held in obscure locations
such as mosques, taxis and churches in an effort to evade the
threat of detention or forced exile. In February, 1996, the
publisher of the Guardian newspaper, Alex Ibru, narrowly escaped
an assassination attempt.30
The reason for the attack was Ibru's attempt to present an accurate
portrayal of the politics and corruption that characterized
the military government.31
In 1995, Christina Anyanwu, publisher and editor of the Sunday
Magazine, was arrested and sentenced to jail by a military tribunal
in a secret trial for being an accessory to the plotters after
she published an article regarding the alleged coup attempt
in 1995.32 While incarcerated,
suffering from typhoid, malaria and high blood pressure, Anyanwu
was awarded the Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, a
US $25,000 prize awarded annually on the recommendation of a
jury of fourteen journalists.33
Foreign journalists in Nigeria are not immune from censure.
In January 1996, Paul Adams, a correspondent for the London
Financial Times, was arrested and charged with "possession of
seditious material."34
Legal Structure
Women's interests are particularly affected by operation of
multiple legal systems governing family law. Depending on her
place of residence, type of marriage, ethnicity, and religion,
a woman's rights and responsibilities with respect to marriage,
divorce, custody of children, property ownership and control,
and inheritance may be governed by statutory, customary, or
Islamic law. This regime is further complicated by the federal
system, which places customary law within the legislative competence
of the states but retains federal jurisdiction over statutory
marriage. Some states have instituted legislation regulating
customary law marriages, creating a merger between customary
and statutory law that is unusual in the African context. The
eastern states passed an Age of Marriage Law in 1956, for example,
that established sixteen as the minimum age of marriage under
customary law and voided any violative marriages.35
The jurisdictional boundaries of the three family law systems
are complex, and the customary law is not unified. Courts are
frequently faced with the problem of determining not only whether
customary law is applicable, but which customary law should
be applied.
In its 1997 report on the human rights situation in Nigeria,
the U.S. State Department indicated that "the nature of the
case usually determines which court has jurisdiction. In principle,
customary courts and Shari'a courts have jurisdiction only if
both plaintiff and defendant agree to it, though in practice
fear of legal costs, delay, and distance to alternative courts
encourage many litigants to choose these courts." Moreover,
women's testimony is not accorded equal weight to that of men
in the Shari'a courts.36
Economy
Nigeria's economy has been built on its huge high-quality
oil reserves, with over 90% of its foreign exchange earnings
coming from oil exports.37
However, the income from petroleum production has not been used
to benefit the population, as much of the revenue has been skimmed
by the political elite and high-ranking government employees,
including particularly the military.38
The per capita GDP is approximately US $260, and an estimated
twenty-nine percent of the population subsists on less than
$1 per day.39
Agriculture employs approximately seventy percent of the country's
work force and accounts for nearly one-fifth of the GNP. As
a result of lower market prices, drought, the growing population,
and the rising competition for skilled labor in other sectors
of the economy, agricultural production has been on a steady
decline since 1960.
Women in Public Life
In 1988, the CEDAW Committee asked the Government about the
low level of women's political participation. Although they
remain few, a number of qualified women have been active in
politics. These include Nike Omoworare-Agunbiade, the first
female Deputy Speaker of the House of Assembly in Oyo State;
Tokunbo Awolowo Dosunmu, daughter of the late opposition leader,
Obafemi Awolowo; and Bose Omorilewa, a trader who was recently
elected to the Oyo state assembly.40
The lack of women in politics seems to be attributable more
to resistance by male politicians and lack of support from women
voters than from lack of qualified female candidates.41
PREVIOUS REVIEW BY CEDAW:
Initial report to CEDAW, 9th Session (1988).
Concerns:
- Whether laws specifically
designed to protect women from discrimination were under consideration.
(#618)
- The identification
of practices and customs that were detrimental to the health
and safety of women and girls (that is: female genital mutilation,
early pregnancies, polygamy). (#620)
- A request for
information regarding the prevalence of prostitution and the
measures taken to rehabilitate women who participated in it.
(#623)
- Information regarding
Nigeria's population policy; and specifically, information
concerning legality of abortion. (#632). 42
REVIEW BY OTHER
UN TREATY BODIES:
Committee on the
Elimination of Racial Discrimination (tenth, eleventh, and twelfth
reports considered 6 and 10 August 1993).
Recommendations
and Observations:
- Concern about
the continued interethnic conflicts and the ineffectiveness
of the Nigerian Police Force in protecting the civilians and
their rights.
- An economic crisis,
continued interethnic and religious conflicts, as well as
a tense political environment were the primary contributors
to the occurrence of human rights violations in Nigeria. Improve
the condition in the country.
- Implement national
legislation prohibiting racist organizations and the promotion,
publication, and circulation of racially discriminatory propaganda.
Adopt legislation that provides for the effective protection
and reparation of individuals within the state against whom
acts of racial discrimination are committed.
- Provide the Committee
with more detailed data on the ethnic composition of the society.
Committee on the
Elimination of Racial Discrimination (thirteenth report considered
17 August 1995).
Concerns and Recommendations:
- Discrimination
has not been adequately addressed.
- Provide additional
information on the implementation and practice of the legislation
prohibiting racial discrimination.
- Monitor the country's
legal, political and social arenas because a breakdown in
either of the three could have perpetuated ethnic conflicts.
- Concerned about
the suggestion that the Government contributed to ethnic discord.
- Evaluate the effectiveness
of the protection it provides to its inhabitants against racial
discrimination.
Human Rights Committee
(initial report considered 3 April 1996).
Concerns, Recommendations
and Observations:
- The proliferation
of interethnic and inter-religious conflict appeared to infringe
upon the enjoyment of rights and freedoms protected under
the Covenant.
- Adopt Decree No.
22 of 1995 (to establish the National Human Rights Commission).
- The Committee
praised the establishment of a Ministry of Women's Affairs
and Social Welfare, focused on the promotion of women participating
at every level of the political, social and economic arena.
- Committee reiterated
its concern regarding the continued disappearances, abductions,
extrajudicial executions, inhuman treatment, arbitrary detentions
and the presence of special secret tribunals that ignore the
notion of fair trial as mandated by article 14 of the Covenant
in Nigeria. Regarding the conditions in the places of detention,
the Committee was concerned about the overcrowding, absence
of adequate food and sanitation, and the high number of deaths
that occurred during detention.
- Concerned that
a large number of detainees were being held without having
been charged and that the death penalty was imposed for crimes
that were not the "most serious offenses."
- Concerned about
the restrictions on the freedoms of expression, association
and assembly.
- Noting allegations
that two officials of a Nigerian human rights organization
had their passports impounded and were prevented from attending
the fifty-sixth session of the Committee, the Committee emphasized
that the consideration of reports takes place in public meetings
and that representatives of both local and international nongovernmental
organizations are entitled to attend the meetings at which
reports are considered and to provide information to the members
of the Committee on an informal basis.
- Concerned about
the low level of women's participation in public life, the
continuation of marriage regimes that permit polygamy and
do not fully respect the equal rights of women, and in particular
the widespread practice of female genital mutilation and forced
marriage. 43
Endnotes:
1
Amnesty International, Amnesty International Country Report:
Nigeria, Internet, available from www.amnesty.org, accessed on
28 February 1998. U.S. Department of State, Nigeria: Country Report
on Human Rights Practices for 1997, 30 January 30, 1998, on-line.
Nigeria: Earth Summit, on-line, Internet, available from http://www.un.org/,
accessed on 1 March 1998. Country Profile: Nigeria, Internet,
available from http:// www.ABC.com, accessed on 3 March 1998.
back 2
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms
of Racial Discrimination: United Republic of Nigeria, 6 and
10 August 1993, on-line. United Nations High Commissioner for
Human Rights, Concluding Observations of the Committee on the
Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination: Nigeria (10
and 11 August 1995), on-line. back
3
Ibid. back
4
Nigeria: The Ibrahim Babangida Regime, on-line, Internet,
available from: http://www.nigerian.galleria.com, accessed on
3 March 1998. back
5
Paul Ejime, "Babangida Defends Annulment of Presidential
Polls," Nando Times: Panafrican News Agency, 18 August 1997,
on-line. back
6
Ibid. back
7
Ibid. Amnesty International, Amnesty International Country
Report: Nigeria, on-line, Internet, available from www.amnesty.org,
Internet, accessed on 28 February 1998. back
8
Appeal to Nigerian Leader General Sani Abacha on 12 June
to Mark Anniversary of Annulled Elections, Internet, available
from http://www.ifex.org, accessed on 11 March 1998. back
9
Paul Ejime, "Babangida Defends Annulment of Presidential
Polls," Nando Times: Panafrican News Agency, August 18, 1997,
on-line. Richard Carver, "Nigeria: On the Brink of Civil War?"
Internet, available from: http://www.unhr.ch/ref.world/country/writenet/wringa.html.
back
10
Judith Leynse, "CPJ Names 10 Enemies of the Press on World
Press Freedom Day, May 3," Committee to Protect Journalists,
3 May 1997. back
11
Howard W. French, "Nigeria, a Proud Nation in a Free Fall,
Seethes Under a General's Grip," New York Times, 4 April 1998,
on-line. back
12
Ibid. back
13
Amnesty International News Release, Nigeria: Death of Prominent
Prisoner of Conscience Does Not Bode Well for Others Detained
in Harsh Conditions, Internet, available from: http:// www.amnesty.org,
accessed on 28 February 1998 (providing background information
regarding Shehu Musa Yar'Adua). back
14
Amnesty International, Amnesty International Country Report:
Nigeria. back
15
Amnesty International News Release, Nigeria: Death of Prominent
Prisoner of Conscience Does Not Bode Well for Others Detained
in Harsh Conditions. back
16
Most prisons in Nigeria do not have medical facilities.
back
17
"Nigeria Voids Suit on Campaign," New York Times, 26 May
1998, on-line. back
18
Appeal to Nigerian Leader General Sani Abacha on 12 June
to Mark Anniversary of Annulled Elections, Internet, available
from: http://www.ifex.org. accessed on 11 March 1998. back
19
Ibid. Amnesty International, Amnesty International Country
Report: Nigeria. back
20
Amnesty International, Amnesty International Country Report:
Nigeria. Howard W. French, "Nigeria, a Proud Nation in a Free
Fall, Seethes Under a General's Grip." back
21
U.S. Department of State, "Nigeria: Country Report on Human
Rights Practices for 1997." back
22
Amnesty International, "Nigeria: Rebecca Onyabi Ikpe, Prisoner
of Conscience," Internet, available from :http://www.digitalrag.com,
accessed on 1 April 1998. back
23
Amnesty International, Amnesty International Country Report:
Nigeria. back
24
"Commission on Human Rights Votes for Special Rapporteur
on Nigeria; Resolution on China Fails to Come to a Vote," United
Nations Press Release HR/CN/804 (16 April 1997). back
25
"Nigeria's Persecuted Press Fights Back Underground," New
York Times, 15 April 1998, on-line. back
26
Ibid. back
27
Nigeria: A Closer Look, Internet, available from: http://www.theskanner.com.
back
28
Ibid. back
29
Amnesty International, Amnesty International Country Report,
Nigeria. back
30
Richard Carver, "Nigeria: On the Bring of Civil War?"
back
31
Ibid. back
32
Jailed Nigerian Journalist Awarded UNESCO Prize, e-mailed
message from: [email protected]. "Nigeria's Persecuted Press Fights
Back Underground." back
33
Ibid. back
34
Ibid. back
35
Ibid. back
36
U.S. Department of State, Nigeria: Country Report on Human
Rights Practices for 1997. back
37
Ibid. back
38
Richard Carver, "Nigeria: On the Brink of Civil War?"
back
39
"Nigeria: African Review 1998," Janet Matthews Information
Services, Quest Economic Database March 1998, Internet, available
from: http://web.lexis-nexis.com/research/retri, accessed on
7 April 1998. back
40
Ibid. "Nigerian Women in Politics," e-mailed message from:
[email protected]. back
41
Remi Oyo, "Politics as 'Male Preserve' Comes Under Attack
in Nigeria," Inter Press Service and Global Information Network
1998, Internet, available from: http://www.tbwt.com/articles/africa/africa260.htm,
accessed on 21 May 1998. back
42
Report of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination
against Women, Nigeria, CEDAW, 7th Sess., CEDAW/C/SR.157 (1988).
back
43
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Concluding
Observation of the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms
of Racial Discrimination: Nigeria, 6 and 10 August 1993, on-line.
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Concluding
Observation of the Human Rights Committee: Nigeria, 3 April
1996, on-line. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights,
Concluding Observation of the Committee on the Elimination of
All Forms of Racial Discrimination: Nigeria, 10 and 11 August
1995, on-line. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights,
Concluding Observation of the Committee on the Elimination of
All Forms of Racial Discrimination: Nigeria, 17 August 1995,
on-line. back
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