Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan recently declared a state of emergency in response to violence by Islamic radicals.  This is a move with dangerous implications for democracy which has already had grave human rights implications for thousands of Nigerians.  In addition to hundreds killed and thousands displaced in the Baga Massacre in April, the United Nations reported this week that thousands of Nigerians have begun streaming into Niger and Cameroon, creating a new wave of displaced persons (will they soon be designated refugees?)

But if the state of emergency was declared so that the government can get a handle on the violence, why didn’t it declare one  in the states where the violence is most serious? This is the question raised by an important analysis released today by the Fund for Peace. It turns out that between January and April of 2013, the worst violence occurred in three areas: (1) around Maiduguri, where the Islamic militants are based, (2) near the city of Kano, and (3) the area just south of Jos in Plateau State (see map to the right from the FFP report). In fact, the overall levels of violence appear to have actually declined in Adamawa and Yobe, two states now subject to large scale military operations.

While the governorship of Adamawa has been held by the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) since the 1999 transition, the other two states subject to the current emergency, Borno and Yobe, are opposition strongholds. The All Nigerian People’s Party (ANPP) and its predecessor have held the governorships since 1999.  After the relative success of the 2011 elections, the Jonathan administration now risks creating an impression of partisan bias without a further rationalization for its decision about where to declare a state of emergency.

The International Law Association’s standards for such declarations, along with other conventions such as the European Unions’, say that the magnitude of the threat must be objectively demonstrable, with an impact on the nation on the whole.  And while the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights allows for suspension of certain rights “in time of public emergency which threatens the life of the nation,” it also provides no exception for Article 6(1), which states “Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.”

N-Katalyst Forum: Nigeria’s Intellectuals Issue a Plea for Human Rights – and Civil Society Activism

Such concerns inspired last week’s declaration, at a meeting in Abuja organized by a group of scholars on Nigeria’s security crisis. The statement notes with concern that the Nigerian government has not made a legal determination about the nature of the current violence, and the counter-insurgency “seems to be conducted outside the ambits of both Human Rights Law and Humanitarian Law.”

With equal alarm, the signatories note “there seems to have developed a culture of silence with respect to the impact of the security conflicts on civilian populations in the theatres of conflict.”  A full humanitarian response is needed not only by the government but from civil society.  You can read the full statement here.

 

Boro the Dreamer:  He Keeps on Living Beyond His Death

Africa’s Garden of Eden: Rich Soil and a Poor People

Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.

May 17, 2013

I would like to extend my deepest appreciation to Governor Henry Dickson and the Bayelsa State Government for inviting me to participate in this major Isaac Boro celebration today.   A man of strength of character and vision, a strong work ethic, a will to make life better for his people.  He deserves this admiration and appreciation.

To the esteemed President Goodluck Jonathan, who hails this state, Ken Soro Wiwe, and Professor Achebe; and David Ogula and all of the Diaspora members.It’s good to be back home again.

I bring you greetings from North America.   There are 42 African American members in the US Congress; 2 in the US Senate.  An African American President in Barack Obama.  A $1 trillion consumer market.   We look forward to this reunion.

 

I am reminded of the Scripture, Micah Chapter 6, Versus 4-8

4: For I brought thee out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee out of the house of servants; and I sent them before thee, Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.

5: O my people, remember now what Balak king of Moab consulted, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him from Shittim unto Gilgal; that ye may know the righteousness of the Lord.

6: Wherewith shall I come before thee, Lord, and bow myself before the high God?  Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?

7: Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil?   Shall I give my first born for my transgressions, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

8: He hath shown thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God?

In this scripture, God rejects all forms of bribery and superficial gifts.  He asks only that you honor me with a formula that leads to justice.

Today we honor Isaac Boro:  a young student who started at 21, killed at 30; like Dr. Martin Luther King, started at 26, killed at 39, both freedom fighters who set the tone for liberation and became a national heroes in their day.

Dr. King killed April 4, 1968; Major Boro killed May 16, 1968, a month apart.These young men were leaders in the golden season of ending racial apartheid and colonialism.

Jesus emerged as a leader at 30, but killed by age 33.So often the visions and hopes, and actions, of the youth, unblemished by fear and corruption, take us to a higher level.

Martin Luther King emerges in Alabama in 1955; Little Rock Nine denied equal education in American in 1957; Boro emerges in 1959, student sit ins in America 1960 – I was jailed in the summer of 1960 for trying to use a public library.

This was young people choosing to forward by hope and not backward by fears.  Dreamers often die young.  But lies cannot deter dreamers.  Jails cannot contain.  Graveyards cannot bury them.     Some debate who killed Boro and Dr. King.   Of that we will never be sure.   What we know is that God resurrected them and they lived beyond the grave.

 

Nigeria: A Garden of Eden in Africa

God blesses this nation with everything it needs or wants:

*          Intelligent, ambitious and industrious people.
*          Fertile soil
*          Oil, beneath the soil
*          Oceans and rivers
*          Fish and farmland

There is no war in the Garden.  No pollution.   That’s because Shell and Chevron were not there.  No racism.   Except for the sin against God, man had heaven on earth.God has given Nigeria these gifts, now we must give God a gift.  PEACE.   But the key to peace is the presence of JUSTICE.

Peace does not equal quietness, or the absence of noise.  Often the oppressed are quiet, intimidated – their pain is suppressed, but their predicament does not suppress their aspirations.Their thirst for justice and fairness must be quenched.

John, in the Bible, was exiled on the Isle of Patmos to die in humiliation and shame.  It was often to be out there alone without food, and living in squalor.   Yet God allowed him to have a new vision, to see a new heaven and a new earth.  The old one would pass away and God promised to wipe his tears from his eyes.

No matter what your predicament, keep dreaming.

 

Justice and Mercy:  Rich Soil, poor people

The laws of justice, without mercy, can be harsh.  We must temper justice with mercy, and accept the moral challenge to honor the Golden Rule – and pursue a city and a nation whose maker and builder is God.   And at it’s highest and deepest, and breadth, the city has balance.

It is not right for a people to starve on a farm full of fertile soil, fruits and vegetables.   How can people swimming in oil, wallow and drown in poverty?   It’s not right, it’s a moral disgrace.

People starving on an island of poverty amidst an ocean of prosperity, is not inevitable.  It’s not natural.   It’s not the will of God.There should be no war in the Garden of Eden, over food, over oil, when there is a surplus, there is abundance.   This struggle for economic justice must be globalized – as in Bangladesh.  African Americans and freedom loving people around the world must ally with you in this struggle.

Nigerians are a brilliant people.   They are at the heart of the Diaspora.  Many of the world’s greatest scholars, scientists, teachers and engineers, are from Nigeria.

Africa is1/8 of the human race, 1/4 of all of the people in Africa.  Nigeria’s wingspan connects with half of the continent.  We must work together to overcome the contradiction between rich soil, and poor people.

In 1960, Nigeria won its Independence – but it’s not enough to be free, the people will not rest until there is economic justice and equality.   Freedom without economic justice, without equality is free to starve, to be illiterate, to be unhealthy, to be desperate.  Beyond slavery and colonialism there must be economic reconstruction, economic justice.

It is a sin, in this Garden of Eden, for such inequality and poverty to exist alongside of such riches and oil resources:  In the Garden of Eva, the issue is not the lack of resources, but greed, jealously and violence that drove man to disobey God and fall from his high place. Today we seek redemption, renewal, and a spirit of love.    We must build bridges.   We must close the gaps.

We cannot allow the oil companies to denigrate our Garden of Eden, to pollute our air and water and land and violate the preciousness of the Niger Delta with environmental warfare.  They are not allowed to unleash gas flares in the U.S. or spill oil without consequences, and kill fish and wild life.    Those same standards must apply to Nigeria.

The oil companies must be fair partners, building and rebuilding refineries.   For Nigeria not to refine oil, is degrading and structurally unjust.

Amnesty must be honored fully.  Pipeline theft of 300,000 barrels must be stopped – at the pipelines, terminals and tankers.   Shell and Chevron and other companies must honor global laws of justice and environmental protection.   We must act on the 2011 environmental program report.

 

Principles for peace, justice and prosperity

Let’s address structural disorder, with Principles for peace, justice and prosperity:  to have balance, we must have:

Respect for international law

Self-determination

Economic Justice

Shared Security

Transparency

One set of rules

We have globalized capital but not human rights, workers rights, women’s rights, children’s rights, environmental security, economic justice and one set of rules.

When Nigeria plays Ghana in the big game, if you win, you win with grace; if you lose, you lose with dignity, never humiliation.   And you prepare for the next game.   The conditions that enable equal opportunity and the chance to win are:  the playing field is even, rules are public and the goals are clear, the referee is fair and the transparent.   We must fight for rules of economic justice.

 

Dream Nigeria

Dream Nigeria as Major Boro did, as Dr. King did.  You defied the odds of occupation, separation and divisiveness and manipulation, you survived.

Dream.

You waged a mighty struggle for independence.  You must complete the mission and fight for peace and equality.

Dream.

You learned to survive apart, now you must tackle and even more difficult mission, learning to live together in peace, a fight worth fighting for with all of your soul.

Choose co-existence over co-annihilation.

Dream.

Nigeria is divided not so much by region, religion or tribe – but by greed.   TOO FEW HAVE TOO MUCH, TOO MANY HAVE TOO LITTLE.

Dream.

The Jesus standard:  you measure a great nation or great man not by how much he has, but how much he shares.

Boro was a dreamer.   That’s why the graveyard could not contain him.   There’s power in the dream.  It’s not limited.  Its beyond budget debates and parties, races and tribe.  To Dream is to be free to imagine.

Dream, of a ONE Nigeria.   One nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.

Dream of a fair formula between states and the federal government.   States must own the land they have beneath their feet, and make a fair contribution to the federal government.The federal government has no more right to occupy a state, than a former colonial power has the right to occupy a state.

Dream:  Of an environment not polluted by gas flames.   Of oil refineries directed by and operated by Nigerians, for the Nigerian people.

Dream of the day when we can wipe out malnutrition.

Dream of the day when we have clean, affordable drinkable water for our children.

Dream.

Dream of the day when we have health care facilities to care for the sick. Dream when everybody has a house with indoor toilets and a running bath. Dream, the blessed in the Diaspora, come home on an annual basis and share your resources, and feed the flower that they have robbed.

Dream of the day when we have free education to inspire and train our youth. Dream Nigeria…of non-violent conflict resolution.  More trade and global markets.

Dream of One Nigeria, one lion and lamb lie together, Lion and lamb are two extremes.  It seems they can never reconcile.  What is it lions and lamb have in common?  No matter how ferocious the lion is and how meek is the lamb, neither want acid rain on their backs; they don’t want to drink poison water.   They want to breathe free.

God has given us the oil, the fish, the farmland and oceans.  Allow us to love and live and abundant life, not a violent death.

The oil resources must unite us, not divide us.   Nigeria and opportunity, and self-determination, must be synonymous. Nigeria and corruption are irreconcilable terms, must be radically rejected.Let’s turn our dreams into reality.

I know dreaming may be difficult.  I know it’s dark, but the morning cometh.I know it’s difficult, but the Lord is our light, and our salvation, whom shall we fear.

It gets dangerous some times, whoa we walk thru the shadows and the valleys of death.  We shall fear no evil, the Lord is with us.

Long live one Nigeria.

The formula is clear; if you want healing, do justice, love mercy and walk humbly before thy God.

And if my people who are called by name and humble themselves and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear their prayer.   Forgive their sins and heal the land.  One Nigeria.

Keep Hope Alive.

In April 2009, Nigeria’s President Yar’Adua told The Guardian newspaper, “Restoring respect for the rule of law is honestly one thing I would want to be remembered for.”  A few months later, the military went on a brutal house to house rampage in Maiduguri, resulting in the public execution by the police of a controversial Islamic preacher.  The response from his relatively obscure sect, now popularly known as Boko Haram, was retaliation and religious radicalization.

The Baga Massacre

Little has changed in the government’s strategy since then, except perhaps that the brutality by all sides has escalated.  Nigeria is now bracing for another round of retaliation.  Satellite images released last week have confirmed the worst about a new round of state violence, this time unleashed on the village of Baga in April 2013.  The photos challenge the official version of the incident, which downplays the number of casualties and homes destroyed.  The evidence from Human Rights Watch corroborates accounts from witnesses and community organizations, identifying at least 2,275 destroyed buildings.  The New York Times and the Nigerian media have reported additional details from hospital morgues, where the military has been delivering dozens of bodies a day – again conflicting with official accounts.

Over the past several years, President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in several states, sent troops, set up a new counterterrorism unit, and (not very helpfully) compared the new wave of violence to the Biafran civil war. He has also utilized new executive authority acquired through anti-terrorism legislation to detain an undisclosed number of suspects, some of whom are reportedly in secret detention facilities according to news accounts and sources I spoke with in Nigeria.  Civilians are caught in the middle of the violence.  Like the Niger Delta rebellions in 2003-2008, which generated 480,000 internally displaced persons according to Nigeria’s National Commission for Refugees, those who survive the violence in the northeast today – whether perpetrated by Boko Haram or by the military – are taking refuge in the already overpopulated capital of Abuja or its environs.

Lessons from Nigeria’s Post-Transition Sectarian Rebellions

Boko Haram can be interpreted as an insurgency against a state with a fragile basis for legitimacy in flawed elections, a constitution decreed by a transitional military regime, a federal structure inhered from colonialism, and failed government performance in an acutely underdeveloped area of the country. From this perspective, a resolution to the violence plaguing the northeast will require many of the same political steps necessary to consolidate democracy, including public accountability for human rights abuses by the security services. The government’s counterterrorism strategy has had the opposite effect, creating victims instead of popular allies and deepening the state’s legitimacy crisis. State coercion is undermining local cooperation and breeding radicalism.

I develop this argument in a new essay, forthcoming in the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding. You can download a free copy here, courtesy of the publisher, Taylor & Francis.  Drawing upon Nigerian media reports, interviews, and primary sources, I compare and contrast the northeastern-based violence with Nigeria’s Niger Delta rebels. (The Niger Delta has received less attention lately, and the U.S. Institute of Peace just released a helpful new report outlining next steps.)  Oil from these southern states generates about 85% of the country’s export earnings, according to recent estimates from the Central Bank. There are important differences between the rebellions, most obviously in the uses and scale of violence. I also identify core lessons from recent militant demobilization.

Both insurgencies sought credible outside mediation, an idea backed up by high-profile civil society groups; the government largely interpreted such requests as an invitation international meddling.  Yet the value of a disinterested, independent outsider is one of the basic principles of conflict resolution. Recalling the historic negotiations in Northern Ireland that ended decades of terrorism there, an important question is, who could be Borno State’s George Mitchell?  Is the newly formed Presidential Committee on Dialogue and Peaceful Resolution of Security Challenges in the North asking such questions?  And more importantly, is it prepared to hold security forces accountable?

The Baga Massacre is a tragedy not only for hundreds of victims, but for Yar’Adua’s dream for rule of law in Nigeria.  The militarized response to Boko Haram will internationalize the crisis, further radicalize the insurgency, and undermine endogenous sources of moderation including the nation’s traditions of federalism. The question is not whether the government should offer amnesty now.  Instead, the matter at hand involves identifying the conditions necessary for a political solution, drawing upon some the historical and institutional factors (outlined in my essay) conducive to such a strategy.  Accountability for human rights abuses, compensation for victims of the violence, and rebuilding damaged places of worship are good places to start.