Nigerian human rights commission to start hearings

ABUJA, Nigeria (Reuters) -- The generals who ruled Nigeria for years look likely to dominate the list of people to be summoned before a human rights commission which starts public hearings on Monday.

Many Nigerians hope the Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission will open up Nigeria's traumatic 15-year era of military dictatorship in the same manner South Africa's Truth Commission did after the Apartheid era.

"Our case is not so dramatic, but in the sense of context the South African situation is not different from what we have," commission member Reverend Father Matthew Hassan Kukah told state television.

"There is no part of our national life that is sacred," added Kukah, an outspoken churchman.

Retired supreme court judge Chukwudifu Oputa, the head of the investigation, told a news briefing last week that his commission had received more than 10,000 petitions during a tour of the country's 36 states.

Only 150 cases would be heard, he said, while most others had been sent to what he called ministerial commissions for adjudication.

The commission was appointed by President Olusegun Obasanjo within a month of his taking office in May 1999 to end 15 years of military dictatorship in Africa's most populous nation.

The period under review is between the coup that toppled elected President Shehu Shagari in December 1983 and the end of military rule on May 29, 1999.

The commission's mandate covers cases including murder, assault, wrongful arrest and detention without trial, seizure of assets and wrongful dismissal from the public service.

Oputa has not elaborated on the 150 cases to be heard, but they are widely expected to cover alleged state-sponsored assassinations, detention and imprisonment after trumped up charges of coup plotting.

Obasanjo himself was jailed by dictator Sani Abacha for alleged coup plotting and was only freed after Abacha's sudden death in 1998 cleared the way for Nigeria's return to democracy. It was not immediately clear if Obasanjo had sent any petition to the commission.

Other cases expected to be heard are the mystery parcel bomb killing of top investigative journalist Dele Giwa in 1986. His lawyer has consistently alleged a state link in Giwa's death.

Also likely to feature is the detention and death in prison of publishing tycoon Moshood Abiola, the presumed winner of a 1993 presidential poll which was scrapped by the then military regime as Abiola headed for victory.

The killing of one of Abiola's wives, Kudirat, by gunmen in a Lagos street is already the subject of a court drama in which one of Abacha's sons and the late dictator's security chief are facing murder charges.

The 1995 hanging of campaigning author Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other minority Ogoni activists; the death in prison of northern politician Shehu Musa Yar'Adua and assassination of pro-democracy activist Alfred Rewane -- all under the Abacha regime -- are expected to be among the 150 cases.

While public anxiety has been high in the runup to the hearings, some Nigerians have questioned the whole idea of a special commission for cases they say should be tried by the courts under existing legislation.

Others doubt if the government can act on any outcome of the investigations.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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U.S. Department of State, Human Rights Reports for 1999
Nigeria Human Rights
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