Between 9 November 2016 and 9 April 2017, over 30,000 people were forcibly evicted from Otodo-Gbame and Ilubirin settlements in Lagos State, a metropolitan city in South-West Nigeria. These evictions were carried out in defiance of court orders, without prior consultations nor adequate notice. Compensation and adequate alternative housing were not provided for evictees. During these forced evictions, security forces and unidentified men killed 11 people. At least 17 people also went missing.

Tens of thousands of children in Nigeria are missing out on their education because of the authorities’ ongoing failure to protect schools, particularly in northern Nigeria, from attacks by insurgents and other armed groups, Amnesty International said today.

Responding to the abduction of 42 persons by gunmen at the Government Science College Kagara Niger state Nigeria, in the early hours of today, Osai Ojigho, Director of Amnesty International Nigeria, said:   

Nigerian authorities have failed to bring to justice those suspected to be responsible for the brutal crackdown by security forces on peaceful #EndSARS protesters at Lekki toll gate and Alausa in Lagos in October 2020 and have brazenly attempted to cover up the violence, said Amnesty International Nigeria today, 100 days on from the attacks. 

Responding to Boko Haram’s claim of responsibility for the abduction of more than 500 students from Government Science Secondary School in the town of Kankara, Katsina State, Osai Ojigho, Director of Amnesty International Nigeria, said:  

Older people have suffered in unique ways from the conflict that has raged for almost a decade in Northeast Nigeria, with many starved or slaughtered in their homes or left to languish and die in squalid, unlawful military detention, Amnesty International said in a new report today.The 67-page report, “My heart is in pain”: Older people’s experience of conflict, displacement, and detention in Northeast Nigeria, shows how both Boko Haram and the Nigerian military have committed atrocities against older women and men, with nobody held to account. It also focuses on how displaced older people are consistently overlooked by the humanitarian response.

Responding to the failure of Nigerian authorities to release report of the Presidential Panel to Review Compliance of the Armed Forces with Human Rights Obligations and Rules of Engagement three years on, Osai Ojigho Director, Amnesty International Nigeria said:  

The Nigerian authorities have left rural communities at the mercy of rampaging gunmen who have killed at least 1,126 people in the north of the country since January, Amnesty International said today.  

Governments must be held accountable for the deaths of health and essential workers who they have failed to protect from COVID-19, Amnesty International said today, as it released a new report documenting the experiences of health workers around the world.

Health and essential workers have played an extraordinary role in the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Across countries, they have put their health and wellbeing at risk, often in very difficult circumstances and with very little support, to ensure that people are able to access the essential services they need. They have faced reprisals from the authorities and their employers for raising safety concerns, and in some cases have been subject to violence and stigma from members of the public. This report makes concrete recommendations for what governments across the world need to do to comply with their human rights obligations and adequately protect the rights of health and essential workers.

‘No Clean Up, No Justice’, published by Amnesty International, Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria, Friends of the Earth Europe, and Milieudefensie/Friends of the Earth Netherlands investigates to what extent Nigeria’s government and the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell have implemented UNEP’s recommendations, why progress has been slow and why the clean-up operations have so far failed to deliver.

By Seun Bakare, Programmes Manager, Amnesty International Nigeria