The United States Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor has published its “2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices” and the report indicts Nigeria on many violations of Human Rights.
These violations include, among a very long list; arbitrary arrests, unlawful and arbitrary killings by both government and nonstate actors; forced disappearances by the government, terrorists, and criminal groups; arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy, serious restrictions on free expression and media, including violence or threats against journalists and the existence of criminal libel laws; serious restrictions on internet freedom etc.
According to the report, some of the reported instances of human rights abuses in the country were documented by Amnesty International. The organization documented 62 cases of arbitrary arrest, ill-treatment, and torture.
The report also highlighted the Nigerian police’s mechanism of parading suspects, leaving them to public ridicule as an instance of such rights violation.
These actions are further strengthened by a weak judiciary and corruption.
According to the report, despite the fact that security outfits such as the Department of State Services, Police, Military report to civilian authorities, they most times act outside of civilian control.
The Nigerian police were also flagged for arbitrary arrests including arresting people found at crime scenes and detaining them from a few hours up to several months. These detainees often do not have access to fair trial and the judiciary that ‘should be independent is susceptible to pressures from the legislature and executive arms of government’.
“Police and other security services have the authority to arrest individuals without first obtaining warrants if they have reasonable suspicion a person committed an offense, a power they sometimes abuse. The law requires that, even during a state of emergency, detainees must appear before a magistrate within 48 hours and have access to lawyers and family members. In some instances, government and security employees did not adhere to this regulation.” it was noted.
The United States government expressed concerns over reports of harassment of journalists for reporting on issues such as political corruption and security, with the Department of State Security especially found culpable of these arbitrary actions. Journalists are arrested and interrogated for reporting critical pieces about the government.
Other actions such as repression of publications by the media, restriction of press freedom were also mentioned in the report.
The Human Rights Watch in its world report had expressed similar concerns about the lack of respect for human rights in the country, identifying issues such as lack of respect for media freedom, lack of freedom of association as core issues affecting the country.
The Freedom in the World 2022 report also had ranked Nigeria as partly free, scoring the country 43 out of 100 points in its ranking index. Nigeria scored 20 of 40 points in political rights and 23 out of 60 points in civil liberty.
The Human Rights Measurement Initiative also noted that Nigeria is performing worse than the average in sub-saharan Africa.
Although the government at various times has noted that it is committed to Press Freedom, and human rights protection, accusations and allegations of abuses continue to raise doubts on the sincerity of the government to its promises.