Nigerian activists blast protests against rights group

By Rafiu Ajakaye

LAGOS, Nigeria (AA) - Dozens of prominent civil rights activists on Wednesday held a rally in the Nigerian capital Abuja to condemn attempts to "intimidate" Amnesty International, a week after hundreds of protesters asked the group to leave the country.

“When credible civil society organizations march, there are no borrowed uniforms and there is no sharing of money,” Chidi Odinkalu, former law professor at Harvard in the U.S. and veteran of Nigeria’s anti-military struggles, said.

The activists insisted that "Amnesty International was being targeted by Nigerian authorities for exposing the truth", apparently claiming that last week's protests had been orchestrated by Abuja.

Abdul Mahmud, another prominent activist, said calls on Amnesty International to leave the country were “not acceptable”, adding that the rights group had helped to protect the rights of Nigerians over the years.

“We are all beneficiaries of the campaign of Amnesty International and I give you an example. In 1991 when I was the president of the NANS (National Association of Nigerian Students) I was arrested by the Ibrahim Babangida adminstration [between 1985 and 1993] under decree number II,” Mahmud said.

“Decree II was a military piece of legislation and we were detained by the then chief of military staff. Amnesty along with other human rights groups -- CLO (Civil Liberties Organisation) -- held a national and international campaign for my release and for other students who were detained across Nigeria.

“We read in our papers that some hired thugs stormed the office of Amnesty International here in Abuja to demand their repatriation from Nigeria and their forcible removal from Nigeria. Not acceptable,” he added.

On Tuesday, several prominent activists also visited the rights group to express solidarity over the attacks believed to have been sponsored by the authorities.

Earlier this month, Nigeria’s Foreign Affairs Ministry attacked the rights body for alleged meddling in local affairs and dismissed its 2016 report condemning alleged rights abuses by security agencies as unfair and below global standard.

In that report, Amnesty accused the security agencies of indiscriminate killing or shooting of unarmed civilians and protesters.

The ministry's statement mirrors earlier positions of the Nigerian military which claimed that the rights group often keeps quiet when violent groups strike but turns around to criticize internal operations by security agencies -- a claim rejected by the group.