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In and interview with the Fad93.1fm/Fad360 Tv, Mr. Damian Ugwu, the researcher for Amnesty International stated that Amnesty International is a group of people who take injustice personal, injustice to one person according to him is injustice to everybody. Their duty is to fight injustice anywhere it is seen around the world. He also mentioned that they have branches in about seventy (70) countries of the world and have millions of members all over the world, and thousands of members in Nigeria.
“For us in Amnesty International, we will like to develop international human right law” according to Mr. Damian Ugwu. He also mentioned that they expect the government and citizens to do things the way it should. And as such will always protest when Police men shoot innocent citizens. “In the case of the Shiites protest, we were there while the police shot at them and saw that the Shiites had no guns, regardless of the fact that the police have stated that they were with guns, but to the best of my knowledge, they had no guns”.
There is a hearing in the senate; that anyone whose hate speech and social media publications are found to be false, but leads to the death of another, such a person will be punished by hanging.
The Media Manager for Amnesty International, Mr. Isa Sanusi, first of all thanked God that such law is not going to hold. He also went ahead to mention that “the happenings in the country are unfortunate, irrespective of the lack, hunger, insecurity and other related challenges, what the common Nigerian wants is the ability to sleep with his or her two eyes closed, to have food for their children to eat and go to school. The priority of the national assembly in every country is to make laws that will make life easier for people, likewise we belief that it is the priority of the Nigeria House of Assembly to have every Nigeria enjoy security. We have rights to express ourselves, even countries with laws regulating social media do it in a very different way. For example, who is going to determine who makes hate speech? Who will find the person? Who will determine what hate speech is? We are totally and vehemently against hate speech, we are totally against the misuse of social media. But, we are against any attempt by anybody to make sure Nigerians do not say their mind or express themselves. We have the law court which deals with all kinds of crime, if we can use them properly I don’t think we need any bill to regulate anybody”
“No going back on hate speech and Social media” Minister of Information Lai Mohammed Stated this morning. What do you think it’s all about?
Well, we will wait and watch what the government will do. First of all, if you look critically at that bill intended to be used for regulating social media, it is totally and in so many ways contradictory to the Nigerian Constitution. Therefore, if any law must be issued to regulate social media, it means the constitution must be amended. For now we are going to wait and see whether there is going to be a law that contradicts the freedom of expression guaranteed by Nigeria’s Constitution which we all agree is standard law”. We are also ready to challenge anyone who wants to deny Nigerians their right to say anything they want to say. If you are offended by anybody on social media you can take the person to court. When a law is put in place, maybe for corruption or social media, this kind of law may end up being misused. It can be used against people in opposing parties, people that are not liked etc. we don’t want that, Nigerians are not slaves.
What role can the Amnesty International play in helping people like Omoyele Sowore former Presidential candidate of the AAC for 2019 election come out of prison?
Mr. Damian stated that the people mentioned including Sowore are government critics, they are people who say things as they see it. They neither belong to APC nor PDP and that is the danger we are talking about. If you allow the government do anything they like, they will use those laws against the people they do not like. Amnesty International wants a society where everyone is equal and treated equally before the law. We want a place where people can be free to express themselves or say their mind. If you are offended take such a person to court. Talking about Sowore’s case, we see that as an attempt be the DSS to subvert the rule of law. In a democratic society, every instruction from the court is expected to be strictly adhered to.
Mr. Isa Sanusi noted that “The problem we have in this country is that people are scare of the law enforcement agents” in other countries people have peace of mind when they see the police but that is not the same with our country, people become scared when they see a police officer in Nigeria. We expect our police men to be treated well, paid well etc, they too are victims. There is a relationship between poor condition of service and corruption and there as a relation between poor condition of service and brutality and atrocity. We also expect them to have international training. The first thing a police man abroad will do is to help you and not to ask how much you can offer him.
Not all Nigerians have their National Identity Card; House of representative have said the military will join Police in the operation positive identification, what is Amnesty International doing about this?
Mr. Sanusi also said “We are actually studying that thing, we are going to be monitoring everything and we assure Nigerians that we are not going to keep quiet if rights are violated” according to Mr. Isa Sanusi. He also said that everyone will be happy if police and military can maintain peace in our country, but people have problem with the abuse of power. For example since 2003 President Obasanjo’s government tried to bring the national identity card it ended in corruption. Right now no one knows what is going on with the national identity management, which gives people only National Identity Numbers which cannot be presented to the police officers, because the government haven’t given that. We will carefully monitor human right violation.”
Considering the population of Nigeria, are they technological means of catching criminals and prosecuting them?
Mr. Sanusi said that in more developed countries this kinds of technology is obtainable and that it is the desire of Amnesty International to see Nigeria government use the resources at their disposal to make such technology available here in Nigeria.
Why is the army not allowed to kill Boko Haram or Police not allowed to kill Criminals?
“We are not in support of any group, and when there is fighting we do not say don’t kill this or don’t kill that. Our concern is that civilians in fighting areas should be protected, children, women etc. we do not stop security agents from doing their work.” Mr. Sanusi Stated.
Mr. Damian Ugwu added that they try to insist that government and security agents follow international law. The international humanitarian law which governs the conflict situations like the one between Nigerian Soldiers and Boko Haram. It states that you can kill when the war is on but, when you arrest a person you have to try them.
Is the Amnesty International only to alert citizens of criminal offenses or do they follow criminal cases up to a logical conclusion?
According Mr. Isa Sanusi, the Media Manager of Amnesty International, “We do follow up case, we want Nigerians to know that we are not the government, neither are the law enforcement agency, what we do is to help the society by doing research. Our specialization is doing research, when there is a violation of human rights, we go there and do research and our findings are presented to the government. We expect the government to investigate whether to prove us right or wrong, we belief government has money, power and access to everybody, they can do better investigation than us. Before we publish our research, we first submit it to the government expecting them to use their power and resources to investigate and punish offenders accordingly. We also expect citizens to be aware of their right, no matter your offence, you are still a suspect until your offence is verified. No one has the right to slap you or take your mobile phone from you. We support the use of due process of law and will continue to fight against the violation of human right.
