Chimezie Elemuo
It is no longer news that the civil society groups that converged at the National Human Rights Commission on 23th December 2019 to register their grievance against the re-arrest and continued detention of Omoyele Sowore the convener of the RevolutionNow protest before his release were attacked, severely manhandled and injured. That is to be expected judging from the type of government will have in place today. But what is reprehensible to me is the very wrong notion that national security supercedes human rights. Major-General Muhammadu Buhari impudently threw this at the face of the gathering of the noble men and women at the NBA Annual General Conference. He relied on the Supreme Court Judgement of Asari Dokubo v. FRN (2007) WRN 1 to buttress his point. I thought that both the government and its supporters have realized their mistake until recently.
I was aghast and taken aback when on the AIT morning programme called kaakaki, a young man who takes pride as the one that organized the pro- Buhari rally gustily insisted with every sense of ignorance that on issue of national security, fundamental rights should take the backstage. He gullibly relied on the same Asari Dokubo v. FRN(2007) WRN 1. For him, the detention of Omoyele Sowore as at the time was good for national security.
To start with, in IGP V. ANPP (2007) 18 NWLR (PT. 1066) 457 at 498-499, the position of the court was that ”the right to demonstrate and the right to protest on matters of public concern are rights which are in the public interest and that which individuals must possess, and which they should exercise without impediment as long as no wrongful act is done.” The court did not end there, it went on to say that “ democracy admits of dissent, protest, marches, rallies and demonstration. True democracy ensures that these are done responsibly and peacefully without violence…” The question may well be: are we in a true democracy? The answer is well in the negative. Omoyele Sowore never carried arms. He did not call for armed insurrection against the government. He simply called for nationwide demonstration against bad governance. May be, the government should be educated that even in war situation, human rights are observed and respected.
Otherwise, why do we have war crimes? Those who claim that national security override human rights may not know the nature of this specie of rights called human rights. It has been noted that human rights were not created by the state but are external and universal institutions, common to all mankind and ante dating the state and founded upon natural law. A right that was not created by the state, which is external and universal, common to all mankind, and ante dating the state itself cannot be relegated in place of national security.
Major-General Muhammadu Buhari has threatened national security more than Omoyele Sowore. Examples abound. He once publicly declared that a fight against Boko Haram is a fight against the North. This statement is on record. He once threatened that both the monkey and the baboon will be soaked in blood if the 2011 presidential election was rigged- a statement that may today qualify as hate speech. When he eventually lost that election, we saw the violent demonstrations across the North and how many lives were lost. Yet, nobody arrested him for threatening national security. Recently, a day before the 2019 presidential election, he declared in a nationwide broadcast that anyone wishing to snatch any ballot box shall pay with his life, when the offence does not carry the death penalty- an inciting statement that can be described as hate speech- and some ballot box snatchers lost their lives to the security agents. It is now very ironic how national security overrides freedom of expression under Muhammadu Buhari’s regime. Free speech is no longer allowed-it is now an expensive commodity. The Hate Speech and Social Media bills are awaiting passage before the National Assembly. Nigeria is now on the throes of dictatorship.
It is important in this write up to highlight properly the radio of the Supreme Court judgement in Asari Dokubo v. FRN (supra). In this case, Asari Dokubo was charged with breaching national security. He applied for bail. Asari is a well known leader of a well known group of Niger Delta agitators. They engage in arms struggle, bombing oil facilities in the Niger Delta region. Alhaji Asari Dokubo did not see this as any offence and in fact, threatened that if he was released on bail he would continue the arms struggle against Nigeria and her oil facilities in the Niger Delta.
Having threatened that he will commit the same offence again if released on bail, it was safe to deny him bail. It was on this ground that the court refused him bail. Where the offender is willing and unequivocally stated that he will commit the same offence again if granted bail, no reasonable court will grant that offender bail. It was in this context that the Supreme Court said that it is better to secure national security than to grant Asari Dukubo bail.
At no point did the Supreme Court say that national security supercedes human rights. If it were so, why was persons like Nasiru el-Rufai, who is now the Kaduna State governor and some northern elites accuse the former Chief of Army Staff Lt. General Ihejirika that he was violating human rights in the fight against Boko Haram and threatened to charge him before the ICC.
Let some persons don’t change the rules of the game because they are in power today. The words of the US Supreme Court in Whitney v. California 274 US 357 at PP. 375-376 is apt here. The court said that “those who won our independence believed that public discussion is a political duty and that this should be a fundamental principle of the government. They recognized the risks to which all human institutions are subject. But they knew that order cannot be secured merely through fear of punishment for its infraction. Recognizing the occasional tyrannies of the governing majorities, they amended the constitution so that free speech and assembly should be guaranteed.” Those who claim that national security supercedes human rights should be careful. The worst threat to national security is the violation of human rights. For injustice to one is injustice to all.
Elemuo writes from Port-Harcourt
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