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A body set up to investigate human rights abuses
spanning more than three decades in Nigeria winds up its public hearings
in September, but one key question remains unanswered: Will three former
military leaders invited to appear before it heed its summons? Comment
by the United Nations IRIN humanitarian information
unit.
General Muhammadu Buhari seized power after sacking an elected government
in 1983. Twenty months later, in 1985, he was ousted by his army chief,
General Ibrahim Babangida, who went on to rule for eight years.
General Abdulsalami Abubakar succeeded the late General Sani Abacha after
his death in 1998, and initiated political reforms that resulted in the
election of President Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999.
The Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission, set up by Obasanjo
in the first weeks after he took office, is headed by a respected retired
supreme court justice, Chukwudifu
Oputa. The commission insists that the three generals have serious
cases of humans rights violations to answer, but none has so far kept
his appointment with it.
As the controversy over whether they should appear before the commission
rages, Obasanjo has weighed in in favour of the generals’ appearance.
“I don’t think anybody is above the law. The Oputa panel is not a court
of law, it is a truth and fact-finding commission. Anybody who has been
invited should appear before it,” he said on state television late in July.
Obasanjo has appeared once already before the commission.
He has declared himself prepared to go before it again in response to a
petition filed by the family of late music star Fela Anikulapo-Kuti for
the destruction of his residence. Kuti’s home was burnt by soldiers, allegedly
on Obasanjo’s orders, while he was a military ruler in the 1970s.
Buhari:
 Buhari
is implicated in the failed abduction in 1984 of Umaru Dikko, who was
a minister in the government he toppled and a strident critic of his regime.
Dikko, who fled Nigeria after the coup, was seized from his London home
by Nigerian agents working with an Israeli doctor. He was drugged and
bundled into a diplomatic crate ready for a Lagos-bound flight before
the British police intervened.
The agents were subsequently jailed in London but Dikko, who returned from
exile in 1995, has also taken the case before the HRVIC. Buhari, whose regime
was renowned for its draconian style, also has to contend with a petition
from the family of a convicted drug pusher executed by his government in
April 1985.
Batholomew Owoh had been arrested for drug offences before Buhari came
to power. Buhari had him executed, along with two other convicts, under
a drug offences decree which prescribed death by firing squad for offenders
and which he made retroactive.
Babangida:  Babangida,
for his part, continues to be dogged by suspicion of involvement in the
1986 parcel bomb killing of prominent journalist Dele Giwa. State security
and military intelligence agents who interrogated the journalist over
allegations of subversion and later called his wife to ask for directions
to his home a day before his death are suspected of killing him.
A colleague of the deceased who was having breakfast with him when the
parcel arrived and survived the blast recalled Giwa’s last words as being:
“This must be from the President.” Lawyer Gani Fawehinmi who represents
the interests of Giwa and his ‘Newswatch’ magazine has tried in vain to
have the suspected security agents brought to trial. He filed a petition
to the commission seeking Babangida’s appearance to answer questions about
the murder.
Abubakar:
 Abubakar
has been invited to appear before the commission in connection with damning
evidence provided by key security and intelligence officials of the former
Abacha regime accusing him of looting the treasury and insinuating that
his government masterminded the murder of politician Moshood Abiola.
Abiola was widely believed to have won the 1993 presidential elections
annulled by Babangida. Abacha had seized power in the turmoil following
the annulment and jailed Abiola when he laid claim to the presidency on
the grounds that he had won the election.
He remained in detention until his death, apparently from heart failure,
in July 1998, one month after Abacha died of the same ailment. Their reasons
not appearing before the commission While Buhari and Babangida have tried
to give reasons for their non-appearance, Abubakar has remained mum over
the allegations against him.
Buhari told an interviewer recently that because the offence of which Dikko
accuses him was committed outside Nigeria, it was beyond the scope of the
commission unless the law that established the body was amended.
Some of his critics have countered that the drug offences for which he
ordered the execution of three people were, like the attempted abduction,
committed outside Nigeria. Babangida had initially alleged threats to his
personal security in Lagos, where the hearing for his case was first scheduled,
expressing a preference for Abuja.
He later secured a court injunction restraining the commission from compelling
him to appear before it. Justice Oputa has said that in deference to their
former positions as Nigerian rulers he would not order their arrest but
would use gentle persuasion to make them appear.
However, Fawehinmi
has threatened to take the matter to international courts if Babangida
fails to honour the summons when the commission, currently on recess,
resumes hearings early in September.
“I plan to utilise all international avenues to bring to justice these
ex-heads of state, particularly Babangida,” he told IRIN. Options he intends
to employ do not exclude petitioning international criminal tribunals and
filing charges against them in Belgian courts which have assumed jurisdiction
for human rights offences committed anywhere in the world.
“Anything that I can hold onto to bring them to justice anywhere in the
globe, I will use. I’ve started my investigations and as soon as I’m ready
Nigerians will hear from me,” Fawehinmi said.
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