Introduction:
Beginning from January 2, 2012,
millions of Nigerians, especially the youth, thronged the streets to take part
in nationwide strikes and protests in response to the Nigerian government's
withdrawal of subsidies on Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) on January 1, 2012.
Overnight, fuel pump prices monumentally leaped from $1.70 per gallon (45 cents
per liter) to at least $3.50 per gallon (94 cents per liter). The costs of food
and transportation also doubled in a country where the majority of the population
lives in abjectly poor conditions.
Under the auspices of the
powerful protests, dubbed "Occupy Nigeria", Nigerians were not just
expressing anger and outrage at the astronomical increase in goods and services
and soaring hardship the subsidy cuts have propelled, but seized the
opportunity to vigorously challenge official impunity, corruption, and
profligacy by the government and political leaders. Many believed that the
cutting petro-subsidies at a period when the country was already facing growing
youth unemployment, rising insecurity, ethnic tensions and violent schisms that
have a religious undertone, was ill-timed.
The Nigerian police, and other
security personnel, were extremely violent and brutal in effecting their
anti-protest operations – maiming, injuring and killing victims. The protests,
which were generally peaceful, assumed frighteningly alarming dimensions when
the government security operatives clamp down started on unarmed protesters,
using excessive force, teargas canisters and lethal weapons to quell what they
termed as violent riots. In many cases, security agents actively connived with
state governments to unleash terror on citizens, in an effort to either
intimidate or entirely prevent peaceful gatherings and assemblies protesting against
the subsidy cuts.
Human rights atrocities soared.
About 20 persons died in different parts of the country; scores received
life-threatening injuries, while over 500 were arrested and cramped in
detention centers across the federation, without any formal charges preferred
against them. Majority of the casualties were aged between 18 – 35 years. At
the back of these cold, impersonal statistics are the heart-wrenching
experiences of blood-and-flesh people in intricate circumstances that involved
“torture, terrorization, extra-judicial killings, loss of jobs, businesses, and
properties, as well as of limb, liberty, loved ones, and life itself, among
other gross violations of human rights.
This study aims to examine the disproportionate targeting of
young persons with extreme violence and extra-judicial killings by government
security agents during the “Occupy Nigeria” protests. It started by documenting
the most important facts about what happened; but these facts are either
already well-known or easily available to interested persons. Therefore, this
study goes beyond the facts to identify and discuss their social, legal and
human rights implications, complementing the necessary discussion around the
identification of strategies for improving the dwindling expectations that the
government would faithfully respect its obligations under the international
human rights treaties that the country has ratified
