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.
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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.
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