By IPS Correspondents
LAGOS, Mar 7 1997 (IPS)

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) here have had mixed reactions to the decision by an Organisation of African Unity (OAU) human rights watchdog to send a mission to the West African nation.

While rights groups welcomed the fact that the mission planned to meet NGO representatives, they had a number of misgivings ranging from scepticism about the usefulness of such visits to doubts about the team’s composition.

The government announced Wednesday that the three-member delegation from the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights was coming to Nigeria on Friday Mar. 7 for “a week-long promotional mission” at Abuja’s invitation.

The visit, it said in a statement, would give the delegation an opportunity to meet government officials, members of the human rights community, NGOs and individuals in five cities – Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt, Kaduna and Kano.

Headed by V.O. Dankwa, Vice Chair of the OAU watchdog, it also includes Atsu Koffi-Amega, a former Togolese foreign minister who led a UN human rights team that visited Nigeria in April 1996, and Essombe Joseph, a legal officer at the Commission’s headquarters in Banjul, the Gambia.

In a joint letter to Dankwa, a copy of which was faxed to IPS here, two leading human rights groups said: “We are encouraged by your decision to meet with us and other representatives of the Nigerian human rights community which has continued to bear the torch of liberty in the face of military dictatorship that brooks no opposition”.

But the groups — the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO) and the Constitional Rights Project (CRP) — also had complaints about the mission.

They recalled that, at a meeting in Uganda in December 1995, the Commission had mandated its chair to lead a delegation including a special rapporteur to investigate the circumstances surrounding the execution of nine minority rights activists in November of that year.

The nine, who included writer Ken Saro-wiwa, had been convicted by a military tribunal after being blamed for the murder of four community leaders killed by a mob.

“We wonder whether your delegation, which has neither the Chairman nor the said Special rapporteur or even the Secretary to the Commission, is representative of the said Commission,” the CLO and CRP said in their letter.

“The inclusion of Koffi Amega in your delegation is another source of concern to us,” they added, recalling that the former Togolese minister led a UN mission to Nigeria in April 1996 which “endorsed the protracted military transition” to democracy — scheduled to be completed in 1998.

“Koffi Amega’s inclusion in the mission already taints its objectivity,” they argued.

At the conclusion of his team’s visit on Apr. 12 last year, Amega had been reported by the media as describing the human rights situation in Nigeria as ‘terrible and terrifying”. One day later, he denied making the statement, charging that his comments, made in French, had been incorrectly translated.

According to Clement Nwankwo, head of the CRP, the human rights community “can’t do much about Amega’s coming but we have made the point in our letter”.

Nwankwo told IPS on Thursday that the OAU agency had not replied to the letter, which had also complained that the timing of the visit to coincide with the 53rd session of the UN Human Rights Commission on Nigeria was to “provide a lifeline for the military dictatorship to deflect and campaign against a meaningful consensus or resolution” of the country’s human rights problems.

The letter also said that the human rights community was curious about whether the government would keep a promise to allow a visit to political detainees, including Moshood Abiola, who claimed victory in presidential elections held in 1993 and annulled by the military.

The itinerary of the team, which was not made public, also worries the CLO and CRP.

“The Commission’s draft programme and itinerary scheduled only Saturday March 8, a non-working day, for a meeting between the Commission and representatives of human rights NGOs in Nigeria while working days are devoted to meetings with government functionaries and institutions,” they said.

A member of another rights group told IPS that the human rights community in Nigeria had become sceptical about some missions, something which also came out in the CLO/CRP letter.

“We have played host to a lot of delegations on missions to Nigeria in recent times and our observation is that some of them have not helped in advancing the cause of the Nigerian people for human rights and accountable government,” the letter said.

Excerpt: