SM UNDAY A G A Z I N E
Nigeria | Death by tax collector
At 2am on March 28th 2022, Olanrewaju Suraju, the head of the Human and Environmental Development Agency (HEDA), was asleep beside his wife in their bedroom in Abuja when they suddenly found themselves under attack by men who had broken into the house. The men, who made off with laptops, mobile phones, and cash, could have been mistaken for ordinary criminals were it not for the fact that they mysteriously told the couple that they were ‘acting on information and instruction.’
Nigerian burglars recently appear to have developed a taste for targeting social justice activists. Houses are robbed, but the thieves also make a point of severely beating their victims too. Suraju, an activist whose organisation is involved in a long-running battle with the Ministry of Justice over corruption involving one of Nigeria’s rich oil blocks, was a very vocal activist. The attack against him and his wife was so vicious that it left both of them in the hospital.
Plain-clothed thugs
One month before the attack on the Suraju family, plainclothed thugs had attacked activists on their way to a court hearing. Again victims were severely beaten and their phones and money were stolen. A month before that, a similar group targeted Omoyele Sowore, initiator of the protest movement ‘RevolutionNow’ and publisher of the critical online news site Sahara Reporters. He was also on his way to a court case. Afterwards, Sowore said, a source in the State Security Services (SSS) had told him that the attack had been ordered by them. He also recalled that the same men had attacked him during a scuffle at an earlier protest, while SSS operatives and police had prevented his escape.
Deji Adeyanju, an associate of Sowore who was himself once beaten so badly by vigilantes during a peaceful protest that he was hospitalised in a life-threatening condition, also says that sources in the SSS confirmed that the agency is behind the attacks. ‘They alerted us before the attack on us that one “Ali from Kano” was “leading a mob” towards us. As they were beating us, I mentioned this name, and it seemed to shake them, as if their secret had been exposed. Intelligence operatives in Nigeria now, whenever they can’t come out against anti-government elements openly, they hire thugs who go after them, both online and offline,’ says Adeyanju. ‘The leadership of this SSS goes after civil society instead of gathering intelligence on Boko Haram.’
‘We were alerted that one ‘Ali from Kano’ was leading a mob towards us’
Though Adeyanju formally reported the assault to the Inspector General of Police in December 2019, the police authorities have yet to make any arrests or publish an investigative report on the case. The same is true for the attack on Olanrewaju Suraju and his wife. ‘The police showed no interest at all’, Suraju says, ‘even when we tracked one of my phones, which was activated by the assailants and gave details of its location. The same authorities who use thugs to attack activists are in firm control of even institutions where victims are supposed to seek redress.’ In a joint statement about the attack, five prominent Nigerian organisations active in the fields of human rights, transparency, anti-corruption and media stated their belief that the attack was aimed at stopping Suraju’s activism.
Oppressive tactics
The recent uptick in violence against activists began in 2020 when organised protests against corruption and human rights abuses were gaining momentum amid a global wave of protests caused in part by the effects of COVID-19 restrictions on people’s lives and livelihoods. At the time the state security forces responded to these protests with a wave of oppressive tactics which have continued to date (see box). On August 18th 2020, amid the growing unrest, the head of the Human Rights Writers Association (HURIWA) Emmanuel Onwubuiko was among the first to go underground. At the time he had been in the midst of an investigation into corruption at the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, where officials appeared to have embezzled 500 million Naira (around US$1.1 million) meant for children’s school lunches.
Onwubuiko made the difficult decision to relocate his family after being followed home by a Toyota Camry driven by ‘a fierce-looking person, with about two other armed occupants’ while driving in Abuja on the evening of August 18 2020. Meanwhile, his work eventually led to an investigation by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), a statutory agency that formally probes corruption, but so far the commission hasn’t published any report.
‘We were alerted that one ‘Ali from Kano’ was leading a mob towards us’
The young men proudly wore T-shirts with the name of their governor
The young men proudly wore T-shirts with the name of their governor
Local authorities’ tolerance of criminal behaviour is often more directly visible away further from the capital, in Nigeria’s 36 federal states. Against a backdrop of soaring youth unemployment, officials are turning a blind eye to the activities of gangs of underemployed young men, so long as those gangs also act in their interest when called upon. Groups of unemployed young men often operate as ‘supporters’ or ‘security guards’ for governors or senators, sometimes even wearing T-shirts that proudly display the names of their benefactors. On April 5th 2021, two protesters, Larry Emmanuel and Victor Udoka, were caught putting up posters calling on President Buhari to resign in Lokoja, the