Violence, “Godfathers” and Corruption in Nigeria

By HRW | Published 11 October 2007

Throughout Nigeria there exists a deeply entrenched culture of impunity that developed at all levels of Nigeria’s government under military rule and remains as a source of the country’s worst human rights abuses since the return to civilian rule in 1999. During its eight years in power the Obasanjo administration made little significant effort to ensure that government officials and members of the security forces implicated in violations of civil and political rights, including election-related violence, were held to account. While only a small minority of the human rights abuses documented in this report were directly carried out by federal government officials, the federal government’s failure to combat widespread impunity for abuses orchestrated by government and PDP officials at the state and local level has fostered the unabated continuation of those abuses.


Human Rights Practices in 2006

By US State Dept. | Published March 6, 2007

The government’s human rights record remained poor, and government officials at all levels continued to commit serious abuses. The most significant human rights problems included the abridgement of citizens’ right to change their government; politically motivated and extrajudicial killings by security forces; the use of excessive force, including torture, by security forces; vigilante killings; impunity; beatings of prisoners, detainees, and suspected criminals; harsh and life threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and prolonged pretrial detention; executive influence on the judiciary and judicial corruption; infringement on privacy rights; restrictions on freedom of speech, press, assembly, religion, and movement; domestic violence and discrimination against women; female genital mutilation


Human Rights Abuses and Murders: 20 February 2007 to 1 march 2007

By HomeOffice | Published 1 March 2007

Violence and lethal force at police and military roadblocks and checkpoints continued during the year, despite the January [2005] announcement by the acting inspector-general of police that police roadblocks would be eliminated. Police generally ignored the order, and roadblocks continued nationwide. Security forces frequently killed persons while trying to extort money from them. Criminal suspects died from unnatural causes while in custody, usually as the result of neglect and harsh treatment. For example on May 1 [2005], in Kubwa, police beat bus driver Gabriel Agbane while arresting him. When Agbane’s family went to the police station the next day, they found him unconscious. Police released him to the family, who took him to a hospital, where he died four days later. Police announced to journalists that Agbane had been drunk during the arrest, had not been healthy, and had fainted on his own.


HRW Annual report on human rights situation in 2006

By HRW | Published 1 January 2007

Since 1999 more than 10,000 Nigerians have died in violent clashes along intercommunal lines, and 2006 saw dozens of such incidents erupt around the country. In February more than 100 people were killed and thousands displaced in a wave of interconnected religious riots that began in the northeastern city of Maiduguri and spread to Bauchi and Anambra states. The underlying causes of Nigeria’s chronic intercommunal strife - including ethnic and religious divisions and competition for scarce economic opportunities - often overlap with and exacerbate one another.


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What Ails the American Economy?
By Kevin Phillips, Barry Gewen
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Even if his pessimism doesn’t seem wholly warranted, a sense of foreboding surely is, which is why his warnings have to be taken seriously. Mr. Phillips writes that the inventors and marketers of the new financial instruments didn’t entirely understand them. An executive of Fidelity International says a panicky feeling has set in on Wall Street because no one knows where the risks really are. The finance minister of France observes that investments may have reached such a level of complexity that no one can assess them. And Charles R. Morris, in his own gloomy book, “The Trillion Dollar Meltdown,” reports that even Citigroup’s chief financial officer “did not know how to value his holdings.