By Deborah Hassan
Amnesty International (Nigeria) has raised the alarm over threats and attacks on staff, supporters and premises of the organisation by a group which it described as “faceless and unknown”.
In a tweet posted on its verified Twitter account this morning, the organisation said it was targeted because of its exposure of human rights violations by state and non-state actors but will not be deterred from speaking up about human rights violations.
In a statement which accompanied the tweet, Amnesty International called on Nigerian authorities to live up to its role of ensuring that their lives and properties are secured as people who live in Nigeria.
It said, “Amnesty International draws the attention of the Nigerian authorities and the general public to the intimidation and outright threats of attacks that were issued against its staff, supporters, and premises by a faceless and unknown group at a press conference held on 4 November, 2020. Similar faceless groups had previously invaded our office and given us ultimatum to leave Nigeria.
“The Nigerian authorities owe a legal duty to ensure the protection of lives and properties of every person in the country. Malicious threats will not deter us from continuing to speak against human rights violations and abuses by state and non-state actors,” the statement added.
On November 4, a group known as The Centre for Africa Liberation and Socio-Economic Rights (CALSER), in a reported press conference, issued an ultimatum to Amnesty International to leave Nigeria within seven days “for peddling fake news, especially on the shooting incident at Lekki tollgate”.
Princess Ajibola, convener of CASLER, said if it failed to do so, her group would mobilise people to its offices across the country.
“We do not, however, find such logic in why Amnesty International, an international NGO, with a serial history of publishing jaundiced reports about Nigeria, will deploy disproportionate resources to undermining the integrity of Nigeria even at such a trying time. The protesters might have made the misleading claim of a massacre at Lekki Toll Gate and the lie that 78 people were killed, but it took Amnesty International’s amplification of that lie for the international community and supra-national organizations to wrongly accuse and condemn Nigeria and its government.
“For Nigeria to rebuild, Amnesty International must be out of the way. CALSER, therefore, gives Amnesty International a seven-day ultimatum to leave Nigeria. The NGO’s failure to leave Nigeria will attract civil disobedience at its offices in Abuja and Lagos on a scale that will make the campaign of looting and arson it facilitated appear like child’s play. Amnesty International’s offices and those of all its affiliated organizations and known supporters in Nigeria will be set upon the same way that its agents destroyed critical assets in the country. Its staffers will be treated the same way that innocent policemen lynched by mobs were treated,” she said in Abuja.