By
Femi Falana
 |
| Femi Falana |
Deportation of dissidents: In 1885 the British
colonial regime deported King Jaja of Opobo to a remote island in West Indies
where he died in 1889. His offence was that he had challenged the imperialist
control of the coastal trade.
In 1941 Comrade Michael Imoudu, President of the
Nigerian Union of Railwaymen was deported from Lagos and banished to his
hometown, Auchi in the Benin Province as he was considered "a potential
threat to public safety" . He only returned to Lagos in 1945 following the
revocation of sections 57-63 of the General Defence Regulation, 1941 under
which he had been detained.
There were other nationalist agitators and labour
leaders who were deported and banished to prevent them from taking part in the
struggle against colonialism. The barbaric practice of deporting Nigerians was
resuscitated by the defunct military dictatorship. In particular, the
reactionary regimes of Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha resorted to
the crude harassment of political opponents by deportation.
In 1992 the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi
SAN, Dr Beko Ransome -Kuti and I were deported from Lagos and detained at Kuje
prison for challenging the unending military rule of the Babangida junta. The
retired General Zamani Lekwot was deported from Kaduna and detained with us in
the prison. The following year we were also repatriated from Lagos and
banished to the same prison for leading peaceful rallies in Lagos against the
criminal annulment of the June 12 presidential election. In June 1994, the
winner of the presidential election, Chief MKO Abiola was deported from
Lagos and detained in military custody in Kano, Borno and Abuja.
In 1995, the chairman of the Campaign
for Democracy (CD), Dr. Beko Ransome-Kuti alerted the world that the secret
trial of General Olusegun Obasanjo and others by a Special Military Tribunal
had been concluded and that the convicts were being prepared for execution. For
leaking such information to the media the human rights leader was tried in
Lagos, jailed for life and deported to Katsina prison.
The CD vice
chairman, Shehu Sanni was arrested in Kaduna, jailed for life in Lagos and
banished to Kirikiri maximum prison in Apapa. Four journalists viz: Chris
Anyanwu, Kunle Ajibade, Charles Mbah and Charles Obi who were convicted for
being accessories after the fact of treason i.e the 1995 phantom coup,
were deported from Lagos and kept in separate prisons in the northern
states.
In 1996, Chief Fawehinmi SAN was once
again deported from Lagos and detained at the Bauchi prison while Femi
Aborishade and I were deported from Lagos and held at the Gumel and Mawadashi
prisons (in Jigawa State) respectively. Comrade Frank Kokori who was arrested
in Lagos was banished to Bama prisons in Borno state for 4 years. General
Obasanjo who was convicted in Lagos was deported to Yola prison. His
ex-deputy, General Shehu Yaradua was deported from Kaduna, convicted in Lagos
and held at various times in Kirikiri, Port Harcourt and Abakaliki prisons.
Like King Jaja both Chief Abiola and
General Yaradua died in suspicious circumstances while they were in custody.
But as deportation of colonial subject subjects could not be justified even
under colonial rule it was carried out pursuant to special regulations. In the
same vein, the military dictators engaged in deportation of citizens under the
preventive detention decrees and the Prison Act.
Deportation of Poor People
It is common knowledge that the
beautification project of the Babatunde Fashola Administration has led to the
deportation of hundreds of the jetsam and the flotsam from Lagos state to
their states of origin. The elite and the media have been celebrating the ban
on "Okada" from the major roads and the removal of traders and area
boys from the streets. For understandable reasons, most of the hundreds
of thousands of poor people who have been displaced and dislodged in the
operation "keep Lagos clean" are of the Yoruba extraction.
In fact, on April 9,2009, when the
Lagos state government deported 129 beggars of Oyo state origin and dumped
them at Molete in Ibadan the Alao Akala regime alleged that the action was
aimed at sabotaging his government. Just last week, some beggars of osun state
origin were also deported by the Lagos state government and dumped at
Osogbo.
It is sad to note that most Nigerians
never took cognisance of the war being waged by state governments against
the poor and disadvantaged citizens in the urban renewal policy until the
much-publicized case of the 14 beggars of Anambra state origin who were
deported in Lagos and dumped in Onitsha about three weeks ago. In fact, it was
the condemnation of the deportation by the Governor of Anambra State, Mr. Peter
Obi that drew the attention of the elite to the unfortunate development.
However, in defence of its action the Lagos State Government stated that it
entered into an agreement with the Anambra State Government through its liaison
office in Lagos on the controversial deportation.
Although the Anambra State government
has not denied the allegation that it was privy to the deportation of
the 14 beggars it is on record that in December 2011 Governor Peter Obi
Administration had deported 29 beggars to their states of origin i.e Akwa Ibom
and Ebonyi states. Apart from such official hypocrisy the Peter Obi regime did
not deem it fit to protest when the Abia state government purged its civil
service of "non-indigenes" in 2012. Many of the victims of the
unjust policy who hail from Anambra state were left in the lurch.
In June 2011, the Federal Capital
Territory government deported 129 beggars to their respective states of origin.
In May 2013, hundreds of beggars were also removed from the streets and
expelled from Abuja. Of course, it is common knowledge that the FCT authorities
has continued to demolish residential houses without following due process in
order to "restore the masterplan of Abuja" which was distorted
through corruption and abuse of office. The majority of the victims of such
illegal demolitions who are poor have been dislocated and forced out of FCT.
Last week, the Rivers State Government
removed 113 Nigerians from the streets of Port Harcourt and deported them to
their states of origin. The Akwa Ibom state government has just contacted
its Lagos counterpart of the planned deportation of two "mad"
Lagosians roaming the streets of Uyo. Many other state governments are busy
deporting beggars, mad men and other destitute in the on-going
beautification of state capitals. Those who are defending the Igbo beggars out
of sheer ethnic irredentism should be advised to examine the socio-economic
implications of the anti-people's urbanisation policy being implemented by the
federal and state governments in the overall interests of the masses.
The Illegality of Internal Deportation
Since deportation has been
resuscitated under the current political dispensation it has become pertinent
to examine the legal implications of the forceful deportation of a group of
citizens on account of their impecunious status. Although street trading and
begging have been banned in some states It is submitted, without any fear of
contradiction, that there is no existing law in Nigeria which has empowered the
federal and state governments to deport any group of Nigerian citizens to their
states of origin.
Accordingly, the forceful removal of
beggars from their chosen abode and repatriation to their states of
origin are illegal and unconstitutional as they violate the fundamental rights
of such citizens enshrined in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria, 1999 as amended. In particular, deportation is an afront to the
human rights of the beggars to dignity of their persons (Section 34), personal
liberty (Section 35), freedom of movement (Section 41), and right of residence
in any part of Nigeria (Section 43).
Furthermore, the deportation of beggars
and other poor people by the Federal and State Governments is a
repudiation of section 15 of the Constitution which has imposed a duty on
the State to promote national integration. Since the political objective
of the State imposes a duty on the governments to "secure full
residence rights for every citizen in all parts of the Federation" it is
illegal to remove poor people from the streets of state capitals without
providing them with alternative accommodation. By targetting beggars and the
destitute and deporting them to their states of origin the state governments
involved are violating Section 42 of the Constitution which has outlawed
discrimination on the basis of place of birth or state of origin.
In so far as Article 2 of the African
Charter on Human and Peoples Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act (Cap A9)
Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004 has specifically banned discriminatory
treatment on the ground of “social origin, fortune, birth or other status” it
is indefensible to subject any group of citizens to harassment on account of
their economic status. An urban renewal policy that has provision for only the
rich cannot be justified under Article 13 of the African Charter which provides
that every citizen shall have equal access to the public services of the
country.
In the celebrated case of the Minister
of Internal Affairs v. Alhaji Shugaba Abdulraham Darma (1982) 3
N.C.L.R. 915 the Court of Appeal upheld the verdict of the Borno State High
Court which had held that the deportation of the Respondent (Alhaji Shugaba)
from Nigeria to Chad by the Federal Government constituted “a violation of his
fundamental rights to person liberty, privacy and freedom to move freely
throughout Nigeria.” In the Director, State Security Service v. Olisa Agbakoba
(1999) 3 NWLR (PT 595) 314 at 356 the Supreme Court reiterated that “It is not
in dispute that the Constitution gives to the Nigerian citizen the right to
move freely throughout Nigeria and to reside in any part thereof.”
Since deportation has denied the victims
the fundamental right to move freely and reside in any state of their choice it
is illegal and unconstitutional. It is indubitably clear that
the fundamental human rights guaranteed by the Constitution and the African
Charter Act are not for the exclusive preserve of the bourgeoisie but for the
enjoyment of all Nigerian citizens including beggars and other economically
marginalised people. To that extent no state governments has the power to
deport or enter into agreements to repatriate any group of citizens to
their states of origin.
The Socio-economic Challenge of
Deportation
It ought to be made clear to the
managers of the neo-colonial state that there is no country which promotes
social inequality that has successfully outlawed the poor from existence.
This explains why beggars are found in large numbers on the streets of
major cities and in the ghettos of the United States of America – the bastion
of capitalism. The situation is bound to be worse in the periphery of
capitalism like Nigeria where the poverty rate has reached an alarming
proportion due to the failure of the State to provide for the welfare and
security of the people which is the primary purpose of government.
The Federal and State governments
should also be made to realize at all times that beggars are Nigerian citizens
who lack money, food and other basic facilities to live decent lives. The
authorities should stop stigmatizing and harassing them and other citizens who
have been pushed to a state of penury by the gross mismanagement of the economy
by a selfish and short sighted ruling class. A nation that complaints of
inadequate funds to establish a social security scheme for the majority of the
people allowed a cartel of fuel importers to corner $16 billion while oil
thieves stole crude oil worth $7 billion on the high seas in 2011
alone.
Yet the influential oil thieves and
pirates are walking free on the streets of our state capitals without any
official harassment. Others who engage in unprecedented corruption, fraud and
other financial and economic crimes have never been deported to their states of
origin. It is high time the government was restrained from holding
the poor vicariously liable for the crisis of underdevelopment of the country.
Therefore, part of the billions of naira being earmarked to build mega cities
should be set aside for the rehabilitation of beggars and the destitute.
There is no doubt that Lagos state is
put under severe pressure, from time to time, by millions of Nigerians who have
been economically displaced in their own states of origin. But unlike its
counterparts the Lagos state government has devised effective strategies to
compel the rich to pay taxes through their noses. In addition the monthly
statutory allocation of the state from the federation account is partly based
on its population. In the circumstance, the Lagos state government should
take from the rich to service the poor. As in the case of most of the "area
boys" who have been productively engaged by the Fashola Administration the
Lagos state government should formulate programmes for the
rehabilitation and resettlement of beggars and other destitute to make them
contribute to the economy of the state.
Conclusion
In his inaugural address on January 20,
1961 the United States President, Mr. J.F. Kennedy warned that “if a free
society cannot help the many who are poor it cannot save the few who are rich”.
About 40 years later, those cautionary words resonated in the case of Hoffman
v. South African Airways (2001) CHR 329 at 354 where Justice Ngcobo of
the Constitutional Court of South Africa stated that “Our Constitution
protects the weak, the marginalized, the socially outcast and the victims of
prejudice and stereotyping. It is only when these groups are protected that we
can be secure that our own rights are protected.”
With respect to the
implementation of neo-liberal policies that have continued to pauperise
our people i am compelled to remind the ruling class in Nigeria of the plea
made by the Late Dr. Akinola Aguda in 1985 that “our new perspective in
law and justice must be such as to guarantee to each of our people food, drink,
lodging, clothing, education and employment in addition to the rights
guaranteed to him so far by our Constitution and our laws, so that justice may
mean the same thing to everyone.”
Finally, since the deporting state
governments have no immigration officials to police their borders there is no
assurance that the deportees will not find their way back to where they
were deported.
However in view of the illegality of the deportation of poor
people the governments of the federal capital territory and the respective
states are advised to stop it without any further delay. If the practice is not
discontinued the deporting state governments should be prepared to defend their
action in Court. Sooner than later.
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