Nigeria: Sanctions Regime

Taiwo Owatemi Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray, and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Ms Brown), who spoke so passionately in favour of justice for Nigerians. I thank the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) for securing this very important debate. This was, of course, a popular debate, and it is unfortunate that my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) was not called to speak in it. She sends her solidarity to the #EndSARS movement.

I must begin by addressing the horrific violence inflicted on young Nigerian civilians who were peacefully expressing their fundamental human rights against police brutality. We have seen on media platforms armed military officers discharge live ammunition at those peaceful protesters, injuring and killing them. It is unfortunate that, as of today, both the federal and state Governments in Nigeria have issued conflicting statements on the events that occurred at the Lekki tollgate, which has left us with a series of yet unanswered questions. Who exactly ordered the military to shoot live ammunition in a civilian territory? Why were the bank accounts of some individuals who partook in the protests frozen?

If a democratic country deprives its people of their aspiration, livelihoods and voices; strips them from their loved ones; forces them into hiding; and instils in them fear of retribution through violent attacks on free speech, that country can only be a dictatorship disguised as a democracy. Is Nigeria a dictatorship? Having asked the question, I will leave the Nigerian public to decide for themselves.

On sanctions, which we are here to discuss, if we can ensure that they will not negatively affect civilians—directly or indirectly—I support a travel ban and asset seizure sanctions for individual officials who are found responsible. Although our discussion of sanctions is crucial to determining how we as a nation respond to the violence that has cumulated in the recent #EndSARS movement, it can only be the tip of the iceberg. We must use our platforms to hold the Nigerian Government accountable through more than just sanctions. We must do the right thing by the people in Nigeria who are protesting for their human rights, and ask the questions that we have been given the platform to ask. What role do the Nigerian Government play in these attacks? Will there be an independent investigation into the 100-plus cases of torture, rape and extrajudicial executions throughout the #EndSARS protests?

The world knows about the violent attacks on Nigerian protestors because civilians at the Lekki tollgate massacre bravely risked their own lives to post videos on social media. Only a few Nigerian news outlets even reported the stories and were all subsequently fined, before the Nigerian Government denied the attack’s existence and began silencing reporters. Agencies and individuals have since blamed one another; no one seems to be taking responsibility. Nigerian civilians risked everything to give themselves a voice that they used to expose the atrocities inflicted upon them, and today, 4,000 miles away, the Nigerian Government propose to strangle that voice with a social media censorship Bill. We must demand transparency about what is happening to civilians and amplify that news using our platform.

We must continue to seek clarity about what happened on 20 October, when power was cut from the Lekki tollgate, and SARS police forces began spraying with bullets the protesters gathering there. I am sure that many of us have seen the footage of peaceful protesters linked arm-in-arm, singing the Nigerian anthem, while they were indiscriminately gunned down. Now is the time to hold officials to account for the crimes against humanity that they have embarked on, so I am calling for an impartial UN investigation into those human rights violations, to begin a process of securing justice for the victims and their families.

As we try to make sense of those incidents, we must ask ourselves uncomfortable questions. I am referring to the fact that British officials trained SARS officers from 2016 to 2020, as well as the Nigerian army. What did that training entail? Could it have prevented escalation of this kind? Standing here as a proud British Nigerian, I implore the Minister and colleagues across the House to pursue answers to those questions and to do what they can to facilitate Nigerians’ fight for freedom.