Civil-Society
Coalition Of Civil Society Groups on Sunday faulted what it
called harassment and intimidation of democratic and humanitarian
organizations and restrictions on rights to press freedom, speech
and Associations by Nigeria’s security agencies.
In the early hours of Wednesday 18th September, 2019,
the Lagos state office of online news platform, Sahara reporters
was barricaded by officers of the Nigerian Army, the Department of
State Services (DSS) and the Nigerian Police who subsequently made
several efforts to force entry into the premises
Simultaneously, the premises of the Committee for the Defence of
Human Rights was invaded by officers from the Department of State
Services(DSS) and the Nigerian Police Force. The actions of the
security agencies were ostensible.
The statement released by the groups chairmen Access to
Justice, Joseph Otteh & Daniel
Igiekhumhe, Human Rights Law Service
(HURILAWS),Collin Okeke, Legal Defence and
Assistance Project (LEDAP),Chinonye Obiagwu
(SAN),Rule of Law and Accountability Centre (RULAC),
Okechukwu Nwaguma and The Network on Police
Reform in Nigeria (NOPRIN), Emmanuel
Ikule stated that the actions of the security agencies
were ostensibly to forestall plans of members of the Coalition for
Revolution (CORE) and other civil society activists to protest the
protracted detention of Mr. Omoyele Sowore, CORE.
Sowore has been in detention August 3rd 2019 after he
was arrested by officers of the Department of State Security for
planning a protest against the Buhari administration.
“This week too, Nigerian Army soldiers invaded the Damaturu and
Maiduguri offices of an international humanitarian organization,
Action against Hunger (AAH), a body that has
operated in Nigeria since 2010. The Army said the organization was
“persona non grata”, accusing Action against Hunger of
“subversive actions despite several warnings to desist from
aiding and abetting terrorists and their atrocities” and
further claiming that AAH is notorious for supplying food and drugs
to criminals in the North East.
“The listed CSOs condemn the actions of Nigeria’s security
forces and the police in both incidents: the actions of the
security forces/police constitute arbitrary and warrantless
violations of the fundamental rights of citizens to assemble
peacefully and to express themselves enshrined in Sections 39, 40
and 41 of the Constitution and Article 7 of the African Charter of
Human and Peoples’ Rights.
“The Nigerian Constitution recognizes the right of every person
or organization to dissent and the rights to press the government
to adhere to the rule of law.
“The siege on AAH premises and disruption of the organization’s
activities is a further escalation and extension of the impunity
that has characterized governance in Nigeria,” the groups
lamented.
“By its action, the Nigerian Army has set a disturbing precedent
which has wider implications for the work and operations of civil
society organizations in Nigeria. The Nigerian military has now
assumed powers to determine which organization can or cannot
function and operate in Nigeria and which is or is not “persona
non grata”.
“The military has, of course, no right to make a judgment of
this kind and it is deeply unfortunate that it asserted such a
power arbitrarily and recklessly. Had AAH breached any laws under
which it operates, there are available legal procedures to hold it
accountable, which procedures will ipso facto safeguard
the organization’s own right to fair hearing. Here, the military is
accuser, judge and executioner.
“The military accuses AAH of aiding terrorists, claiming that
AAH “supplies food and drugs to criminals” but Nigeria has
anti-terrorism laws that criminalize conduct related to terrorism.
Those laws give the military no right or power to lay siege on
humanitarian organizations, shutter their operations, make legal
determinations as to the propriety of an organization’s conduct or
indeed decide whether an organization is “persona non grata” or
not. The Geneva Conventions make it a war crime to deny even
captured troops of food and drugs, and it seems that the Army would
not object if any of its captured troops were provided food and
water by enemy combatants.
The CSOs further stated that the army has clearly overreached
its powers and extended the curve of its impunity into new
territory.
“We are concerned that if the military is allowed to maintain or
get away with its unlawful siege of AAH, it would sooner replicate
the same unlawful and brazen conduct against other civil society
organizations, some of whom have already been accused by the Army
of treasonable crimes. The latest acts of impunity give us further
reason to fear that Nigeria is fast sliding into a full
dictatorship, where the State systematically uses its power to
crush dissent and ride rough-shod over the rule of law. We are
worried that ominous clouds of authoritariannism are thickening in
Nigeria.
“Finally, we strongly condemn the siege on the offices of
Sahara Reporters, the Committee for the
Defence of Human Rights (CDHR) and Action Against
Hunger (AHH) and call on the security forces and
government officials involved in this illegality and back down and
allow journalists, activists and civil society to operate
freely.
To this end, the groups have made the following demands:
- The Nigerian government must repudiate the Nigerian Army’s
unlawful interference with the operations of Action Against Hunger
(AAH) and demand the Army pulls out of the offices of AAH, and
further direct that the Army never toes this unlawful path
again. - That the Nigerian Army immediately lifts its siege on AAH
offices, makes a public apology to AAH for its provocative actions,
and hold accountable all of its officers who ordered the unlawful
entry into AAH offices and the disruption of the organization’s
activities; - Nigeria’s security and law enforcement agencies must respect
citizens’ constitutional rights to speak openly and freely, and to
associate together for this purpose. Nigeria expresses itself as a
constitutional state and its agencies must respect the limits of
their powers and the rights of citizens. Security and law
enforcement agencies must prioritize respect to the Constitution
more than to a sitting government. The use of State powers to serve
political ends represents a corrupt use of that power. - The Nigerian government must release Omoyele Sowore and all
those arrested in connection with the public protests he was
leading. Criminalizing civil society actors who campaign for good
governance is undemocratic and vindictive, and serves no useful
public purpose.