The activities of human rights crusaders in Nigeria since the advent of democracy in 1999 is no longer what it used to be, thus prompting rampant abuse of human rights by the government or its agencies.
This was the position of Olisa Agbakoba, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and erstwhile president of Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO), a formidable civil rights group that championed serious campaign against military rule and human rights abuses.
“Things have changed,” he said.
According to Agbakoba while interacting with journalists, “In 1991, I was a big opposition in the country because all the ambassadors were very happy to ask me what I thought about the happenings in the country. I mean the human rights abuses and assassinations that occurred under the military.
“We led the opposition movement across Africa to various regions, European and the Commonwealth. The last place we went was in Oakland.”
He said that during the era of military, just before the enthronement of democracy in 1999, human rights was relevant because there was nothing else except the issue of human rights abuses. “It was a military government versus the people, and therefore we had that role because the human rights were actually more limited in Nigeria. Human rights activists expanded because of the role they had to play at that time. But in 1998, politicians came in and the real challenge was whether the activists would cross over into politics.”
He posited that those who crossed over and were elected from the constituency should therefore do those things that were expected from them.
Agbakoba, who was also former president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), said that human rights actors these days should be as relevant as they were when there was need for them to do it. He however noted that there are specialised kinds of issues and struggles. He cited the struggle by Oby Ezekwesili who is championing the crusade for the release of Chibok girls. There are others championing one human rights crusade or the other and under the same name but different names.
“The current name now for activism is governance and we have a lot of them talking about governance, making sure that things are well monitored, and so it continues but in a different way,” he said.