March
28, 2013
Lagos, Nigeria
Attack on Human Rights Defenders: Lagos State Government Uses Punitive
New Traffic Law to Harass the Social and Economic Rights Action Center (SERAC)
Under the ruse
of enforcing the notorious new Traffic Law of 2012, the Lagos State Government
has imprisoned two staff members of the Social and Economic Rights Action
Center (SERAC) and impounded two vehicles, one belonging to SERAC and the
second to its Executive Director, Felix Morka, The move comes just days after a
visit from the World Bank, occasioned by an urgent complaint filed by SERAC, to
investigate the Lagos State Government’s massive demolition and forced eviction
of the Badia East community on February 23, 2013.
On Tuesday,
March 26, just after 3pm, the two-car caravan was stuck in traffic on CMD Road
after the gate of Magodo Phase II residential estate and just before the
entrance to the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. As is often the case in heavy rush
hour traffic, ordinary citizens were in the junction helping to direct traffic.
As they signaled the line of traffic to move, the car immediately in front of
the SERAC caravan appeared to have stalled. Following signals, the two-car
SERAC caravan pulled out and around the vehicle to make the turn onto the
Expressway. No sooner did they start to merge back into traffic than a police
vehicle sped up and blocked the two cars, insisting that they reverse onto the
curb on the opposite side of the road to make way for an oncoming official
convoy that suddenly appeared from the opposite direction.
The police
vehicle continued on down the road, followed by a second and then an official
Range Rover, which slowed and stopped next to Mr. Morka’s vehicle. Mr. Morka
looked over and recognized Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola inside. The two men
made eye contact and, as they have known each other for more than a decade, Mr.
Morka alighted from his vehicle to greet the Governor. As he approached the
car, the Governor’s vehicle began moving and he suddenly saw six or seven
policemen come running back over a distance of at least 30 feet, leaving their
vehicles behind and carrying guns. The policemen forcibly pulled all the
passengers, including Mr. Morka’s four young children, out of the two cars and
started beating the two drivers. One fared worse than the other and was beaten
severely on his legs with the butt of the policemen’s guns, while one
passenger’s phone was smashed in the chaos.
All the
passengers, the two drivers, and the two vehicles were taken into custody and
immediately carried to the office of the Lagos State Task Force on
Environmental and Special Offences, which sits directly behind the Office of
the Governor in the Alausa area of Lagos. Everyone remained at the
Task Force office for several hours into the evening, while the drivers
were detained forced to write and rewrite statements.
The two
drivers are being charged under provisions of the new Traffic Law of 2012 that
carry a disproportionately punitive penalty: one year’s incarceration and
forfeiture of the vehicles to the State. The matter is before a magistrate
sitting in the so-called “Special Offences Court,” a court employing summary
procedures that is housed in the Task Force premises directly behind the Office
of the Governor.
Late on
Wednesday, the magistrate set near impossible conditions for bail: each of the
accused must provide a N200,000 bond, a N100,000 deposit with the Registrar of
the High Court, and two sureties, one of whom must be a senior civil servant
(Grade Level 12), one of whom must have landed property in Lagos State and both
of whom must show 7-years tax clearance in Lagos State. Despite tireless
efforts from SERAC to meet these onerous conditions before the end of Thursday,
the two men have been remanded in prison for the four-day Easter weekend. To
make matters worse, they have been transferred to prison in Badagry, a couple
hours drive from Lagos in traffic. The two cars remain impounded at the Task
Force office.
Looming in the
background of what the Lagos State Government wants to call “routine traffic
enforcement” is SERAC’s recent high-profile advocacy efforts over the massive
forced eviction of thousands of residents of the Badia East community on
February 23. Thanks to press statements and photographic/video evidence from
SERAC, the matter has been widely condemned internationally, including in the
pages of the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Associated
Press and by Amnesty International and other human rights groups.
SERAC also led
the fight to stop the July 2012 violent demolitions and forced evictions of
thousands of residents on the Makoko Waterfront, a community where it has
worked for 17 years. SERAC’s media and advocacy campaign culminated in a protest
march that brought thousands from Makoko to the Office of the Governor after
the fatal shooting of a community leader by the police on July 21, 2012.
Combined with an international outcry, the Lagos State Government had no choice
but to halt the demolition and change its plans for the waterfront.
More recently,
a team from the World Bank was in Lagos in response to a SERAC petition to
investigate the Badia East demolition, which displaced thousands of intended
beneficiaries of the $200 million World Bank-funded Lagos Metropolitan
Development and Governance Project (LMDGP). Badia is one of nine host
communities for “urban upgrading” a under the LMDGP. The Badia East demolition
cleared a huge area directly next to a canal only recently constructed by the LMDGP.
Following a meeting between World Bank, LMDGP and SERAC on March 15, a World
Bank official just last week visited the demolition site in Badia to verify the
devastation reportedly and met with a senior official of the Lagos State
Government.
Earlier this week, five Badia East evictees who are part of a lawsuit
SERAC has filed against the Lagos State Government were arrested on false
charges and detained for over 48 hours. The Government has also this week
increased its harassment of the evicted persons sleeping outside or in
makeshift structures around the demolished area. Task Force is now patrolling
the area daily, knocking down temporary shelters and telling evictees to move
on or go elsewhere.
SERAC is a
non-governmental organization that has worked since 1995 to defend the social
and economic rights of the urban poor in communities such as Maroko, Makoko and
Badia in Lagos and elsewhere in Nigeria. Led by Mr. Morka, it has all too often
been forced to confront the policies and practices of the Lagos State
Government that dispossess and further impoverish Nigerian citizens in flagrant
disregard for their fundamental rights. SERAC fears that its sustained defense
of the urban poor has now struck one too many chords, prompting the present
retaliation against human rights defenders and community members who dare to
challenge the arbitrary policies and practices of the Lagos State Government.
Signed,
Social and
Economic Rights Action Center (SERAC)
For more
information, please contact info@serac.org.
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