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Looking Forward: Government Inaction and the Risk of Further Violence

In spite of serious blunders and abuses, since August the Joint Task Force has succeeded in restoring a fragile peace to the streets of Port Harcourt. That achievement already stands threatened, however—a limited wave of violence and kidnappings broke across Port Harcourt in the first three months of 2008, including the kidnapping of three young children.¹²⁹  Many local residents told Human Rights Watch that they were terrified of what will happen when JTF forces withdraw their presence on the streets.¹³⁰ As one local resident put it, “the JTF has restored sanity within the area. Before we were living with fear…[Now] we are sleeping freely with our two eyes closed.”¹³¹ But few had faith in the ability or willingness of the police and state government officials to prevent the gangs from returning to the streets. Even fewer had confidence the government would address the root causes of the violence.

Since at least 2003 (as discussed above in the “Background” chapter), high-ranking state and local government officials in Rivers State have been directly implicated in arming the very gangs the JTF is now tasked with combating. Rivers State police have consistently turned a blind eye not only to the criminal and politically motivated violence, but also to the political sponsorship of gang violence—a problem that has continued to the present. Ultimately, no effort to combat gang violence in Rivers State can succeed unless it holds to account the politicians behind those committing the crimes.

The Rivers State Government

Celestine Omehia became governor through the brazenly rigged April 2007 polls. He remained in office for only five months before Nigeria’s Supreme Court overturned his election in October 2007. While in power the Omehia administration did nothing to check rising violence in the state or to sever the links between government officials and criminal gangs that were established by his predecessor as governor, Peter Odili.¹³²

Human Rights Watch interviewed Okey Wali, then-attorney general under the Omehia government. Among its major tasks, the attorney general’s office is responsible for pursuing criminal prosecutions against gang members in Rivers State. In October 2007 Wali acknowledged that no such prosecutions were underway or even planned.¹³³

Wali also claimed that he was powerless to build prosecutions against politicians who sponsored armed gangs unless the police presented him with all of the evidence needed to go to court. Asked why the state government had not urged the police to arrest Soboma George at any point after he escaped from prison in 2005, Wali responded, “I do not know the facts of what happened before we came [into office].” He also claimed that, “I do not have any records indicating that Soboma George was charged to court”—despite the fact that Soboma George was facing murder charges when he escaped from prison. Wali then added, “This is not the time to cry over spilt milk.”¹³⁴

The Omehia administration included politicians with ties to cult gangs, sending a clear signal that those gangs and the politicians who sponsored them were an integral part of politics under its watch. Omehia’s secretary to the state government (SSG), Gabriel Pidomson, was one of the chief sponsors of gangs involved in the devastation of Pidomson’s home community of Bodo.¹³⁵ Pidomson had also been speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly during the Odili government. As one resident of Bodo complained to Human Rights Watch, “The first person to bring gun here was Pidomson. And yet they have made him state house of assembly and then SSG.”¹³⁶

The irony inherent in all of this was not lost on the victims of Rivers’ post-election violence. The man whose wife, a nurse, was shot dead by gang members while she walked home from work one afternoon in early August (see above, chapter “The Human Rights Impact of Post-Election Gang Violence in Rivers State,” subsection “August: Chaos Takes Hold”), complained bitterly,

The weapons they had, even the military man does not have that. Who gave it to them? Government never wants to do anything because they are involved. They are in power. They could stop it if they want to.¹³⁷

Administration of Gov. Rotimi Amaechi

Current Rivers Governor Rotimi Amaechi was put into office by Nigeria’s Supreme Court in October 2007. Amaechi had challenged the legality of the PDP primaries in Rivers State, arguing that he had won the contest and should have been on the ballot instead of Celestine Omehia as the party’s gubernatorial candidate. The Supreme Court found in Amaechi’s favor and, rather than order a new election, simply installed him into office.

There is ample reason for skepticism over the Amaechi administration’s ability or willingness to address Rivers State’s chronic problems of corruption, poor governance, and violence. Amaechi served in the Rivers State House of Assembly during the Odili administration and in that capacity was implicated in an investigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in a corruption scandal involving the alleged theft of some ₦100 billion.¹⁴³ This in fact was the primary reason advanced by PDP officials for keeping Amaechi off the ballot. One of Amaechi’s first acts as governor was to announce that he would not conduct any inquiry into allegations of corruption against the Odili administration— effectively ruling out an essential component of any sufficient effort to tackle the root causes of violence in the state.¹⁴⁴

Amaechi’s first months in office have nonetheless been marked by some positive—albeit limited—signs. Amaechi’s government has indefinitely suspended, but not formally renounced, the Omehia government’s disastrous plan to demolish 26 waterfront communities. That plan threatened to render tens of thousands of people homeless without adequate compensation and without any convincing rationale. Also, Governor Amaechi has for the first time appointed a credible civil society representative to Rivers State’s Electoral Commission, which will oversee the conduct of local government polls slated for March 29, 2008.¹⁴⁵ But PDP primaries in preparations for those polls were held in February 2008 and local observers reported that they were marred by widespread irregularities as well as acts of “thuggery and intimidation” by powerful politicians.¹⁴⁶ To its credit, the Electoral Commission ordered a rerun of many of the most flawed primary polls, but the rerun polls were reportedly marred by the same kinds of abuse. A report by local civil society groups lamented,

Unfortunately, Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi’s declaration when he assumed duties that the era of imposition of candidates and godfatherism in Rivers politics was over was [ignored] by the Governor’s men during the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Councillorship primaries as they swiftly hijacked the entire process rendering those without godfathers helpless.¹⁴⁷

At this writing it remains to be seen whether the state government will address these problems.

The Nigerian Police

Two days prior to Rivers State’s gubernatorial elections in April 2007, Human Rights Watch met with a local gang leader less than a block away from a police post in the Diobu area of Port Harcourt. Gesturing contemptuously at the officers standing around outside, he remarked, “You see that small police station? They have no influence over us. Their hands are tied.”¹⁴⁸

While Rivers State government officials have actively nurtured the arming and growth of gangs in the state, the Nigerian police have made the proliferation of these groups possible by consistently failing to enforce the law. The police have made no significant effort to investigate, apprehend, or prosecute any prominent gang leader or any Rivers State government official involved in sponsoring gang violence. That failure, which has often left gangs free to prey upon communities throughout Rivers State, is a gross neglect of the central responsibilities of the police force. The police have also failed to deal with other manifestations of rampant criminality in Rivers State, including oil bunkering, kidnappings, and electoral fraud by Rivers politicians.

Assistant Inspector General of Police Ogbonna Onovo confirmed to Human Rights Watch in October that the police had no plans to investigate former governor Peter Odili or any other Rivers politician for sponsorship of cult violence.¹⁴⁹ Asked to justify this inaction Onovo responded, “Ateke and Asari have never said, ‘It was so-so who armed me.’”¹⁵⁰ This would not excuse a failure to investigate even if it were true, but in fact Ateke Tom has repeatedly stated on the record that Odili employed him to help rig the 2003 elections by force. In April 2007, for example, Ateke told Human Rights Watch that in 2003, “Any place Odili sent me, I conquered for him. I conquered everywhere.”¹⁵¹

The police have also not made any attempt in recent years to arrest leading gang members. Soboma George and Ateke Tom, for example, have both moved about the state openly for much of the past four years, even though both were theoretically wanted by the police. Implausibly, the police claim that prior to the August JTF assault on his home they had been searching for Soboma George and other gang leaders for several years but were unable to locate any of them. Rivers State Commissioner of Police Felix Ogbaudu told Human Rights Watch in October 2007, “We [didn’t] know where they are. These are clever people.”¹⁵² As already noted, Soboma George, an escaped prisoner who faces charges of murder, had openly maintained a home in Marine Base, and some residents of Port Harcourt complained that Soboma was regularly seen playing soccer in public places and questioned why the police could not have arrested him there.¹⁵³

The Federal Government

The Rivers State government and the Nigerian police bear most of the direct responsibility for creating the conditions that have allowed violence to grow unchecked in Rivers State. But the irresponsibility and misconduct of both of those institutions is only possible because the federal government has done nothing to insist on adherence to, and enforcement of, the law. Rivers’ violence has its roots in politics, and the PDP at the national level has benefited from the successful efforts of Rivers politicians to violently rig elections. President Umaru Yar’Adua came into office pledging dramatic action to halt violence in the Niger Delta, but these promises have not resulted in any concrete action to date.¹⁵⁴

Because Nigeria’s police are under federal control, the federal government has the responsibility to ensure adequate oversight and guidance of police activities in Rivers State. However, there is no evidence that the federal government has exerted any pressure on the police to conduct investigations into the criminal links between violent gangs and the state’s politicians.

Under both the Obasanjo and Yar’Adua federal governments, the national anti-corruption body, the EFCC, systematically failed to pursue criminal charges against influential members of the ruling party, including former governor Odili. In March 2008 Odili secured a controversial court injunction barring the EFCC from investigating or arresting him for any corruption-related offense; that ruling is being challenged in court.

The EFCC’s arrest of powerful former Delta State Governor James Ibori on corruption charges in December 2007 seemed to signal a sharp and important departure from the trend toward leaving the most powerful politicians untouched. But weeks after Ibori’s arrest the Yar’Adua government eviscerated the EFCC’s credibility by sacking its executive chairman in apparent retaliation for its pursuit of high-profile politicians. Because of the motives that appeared to lie behind it, this move has largely destroyed the credibility of federal anti-corruption efforts. This will likely further embolden politicians in Rivers State and elsewhere who have used corruption as a mechanism to fund violence and subvert the democratic process.

In September 2007 President Yar’Adua announced that he would order an investigation into the links between Rivers State government officials and cult gangs.¹⁵⁵ However, the federal government has since made no mention of that promised investigation.