Reports On Levirate Marriage Practices in Igbo and Yoruba

By Canadian Government | Published January 2000

The following information was obtained during a 25 January 2000 telephone interview with a Professor of African Languages and Literature at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who is also the Director of the National African Language Resource Centre. Her responsibilities include Yoruba language studies. She is herself Yoruba and visits Nigeria regularly. She stated that levirate marriages are still possible in small, traditional Yoruba communities but that they are not likely to occur in urban areas. While stating that levirate marriages may still occur in the Yoruba culture, she said that “it is possible for a woman to say no.” She mentioned one recent example, that she was familiar with, in which the widow’s deceased husband’s father wanted to marry her. The woman declined, although this presented her with some difficulties in later dealings with her father-in-law. The professor said that there was antagonism toward the widow from the father-in-law and that he tried “to make her life miserable.”


Victims of Ritual Violence in 1999

By Canadian Government | Published 10 March 2000

Government sources have acknowledged that crime is on the increase in Nigeria (The Guardian 16 Sept. 1999b; ibid. 11 Jan. 2000; ibid. 14 Jan. 2000a). Vice President Atiku Abubakar stated in January 2000 that the administration is facing “more than its fair share of acts of lawlessness in some parts of the country by some militant groups,” adding that police officers are occasionally “attacked, killed or maimed” by members of these groups under the guise of protecting ethnic interest or advancing human rights (ibid.). A meeting of high-level police officials in September 1999 looked at the need to address “inter-communal clashes, violent crimes and cultism”.


Assessment of Conditions in Nigeria 2000

By HomeOffice | Published April 2000

In early November 1999 it was reported that twelve policemen were killed by Ijaw youths, in retaliation for the large number of Ijaws arrested by the police during the Lagos riots. [269] On 20 November 1999 in response to this incident, the Nigerian armies were order by the civilian governor to surround the town of Odi in Bayelsa State. This was the town in which the policemen were killed, and where it was believed that the Ijaws responsible were hiding. The military came under fire and over-reacted, severely damaging the town. It is not known how many people were killed, but the local residents claim that over 500 died. Over 2000 people were detained, but it is not known if those responsible for the deaths of the police officer were among those detained or killed.


Report on Odua People’s Congress (OPC)

By Canadian Government | Published 6 March 2000

In an account of the OPC’s emergence, a West Africa article claims that the OPC’s predecessors were “freelance thugs” in Lagos known as the “Area Boys,” who grew up in slums and resented the wealth they saw in the city’s commercial districts (17-23 Jan. 2000, 19). The article says that the organization “was formed in 1995 as an underground movement being trained in preparation for armed resistance against the Abacha regime” and that “it made its first public outing during the December 14, 1995 All Politicians Meeting in Lagos, where its banners and handbills exhorted the Yorubas to take their destiny into their own hands with the slogan ... “Yorubas think!”.


Report on Human Rights Practices in 1999

By US State Dept. | Published 25 February 2000

Police and military personnel used excessive and sometimes deadly force in the suppression of civil unrest and interethnic violence, primarily in the oil and gas regions of the country, where there has been an upsurge in confrontations between increasingly militant youths, oil companies, and government authorities. For example, in December 1998, about 4,000 Ijaw activists met and issued the “Kaiama Declaration,” which demanded that all government armed forces withdraw from Ijaw areas, that oil companies stop all production by December 30, and emphasized that the Delta region belonged to the Ijaw. In response to a perceived threat, the Government deployed additional armed forces in Bayelsa State and declared a state of emergency there.


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