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Nigeria Security and Anticrime Measures
The Buhari and Babangida military administrations
relied
heavily on decrees and special tribunals to regulate
public life
and punish offenders. Soon after his takeover on December
31,
1983, Buhari issued a decree imposing life imprisonment on
anyone
found guilty of corruption, and he set up four tribunals
consisting of three senior officers and a judge to try
almost 500
political leaders detained since the coup. State Security
(Detention of Persons) Decree Number 2 of 1984 suspended
constitutional freedoms, empowered the chief of staff,
Supreme
Headquarters, to detain indefinitely (subject to review
every
three months) anyone suspected of "acts prejudicial to
state
security or . . . [contributing] to the economic adversity
of the
nation." The decree also authorized any police officer or
member
of the armed forces to arrest and imprison such persons.
Likewise, the Recovery of Public Property (Special
Military
Tribunals) Decree Number 3 of 1984 set up tribunals to try
former
officials suspected of embezzlement and of other forms of
misappropriation, also without right of appeal. The
Exchange
Control and Anti-Sabotage Tribunal dealt with certain
economic
crimes; a new press control law, Decree Number 4 of April
1984
(received August 1985), was enforced by a similar special
tribunal, without appeal rights. The Special Tribunal
(Miscellaneous Offences) Decree covered a wide range of
offenses,
including forgery, arson, destruction of public property,
unlawful vegetable cultivation, postal matters, and
cheating on
examinations. By July 1984, Buhari had issued twenty-two
decrees,
including two retroactive to December 31, 1983,
prescribing the
death penalty for arson, drug trafficking, oil smuggling,
and
currency counterfeiting. In a related attempt to combat
public
indiscipline, Buhari's chief of staff, Brigadier General
Tunde
Idiagbon, launched a largely symbolic and ineffective
nationwide
War Against Indiscipline (WAI) campaign in spring 1984.
Babangida's AFRC allowed the WAI campaign to lapse and
took
several other measures to mitigate Buhari's draconian
rule,
including abolition in July 1986 of the death sentence
under
Decree Number 20 of l984 for illegal ship bunkering and
drug
trafficking, and setting up an appeal tribunal for persons
convicted under decrees 2 and 3 of 1984. However, the
Babangida
regime continued the Armed Robbery and Firearms Tribunals
under
which most of the death sentences were carried out without
appeal. By early 1987, more than 300 people had been
executed
after conviction by these tribunals, and in 1988 another
85
executions were known to have been carried out under their
sentences. The Treason and Other Offences (Special
Military
Tribunal) Decree of l986 empowered the AFRC to constitute
another
special tribunal to try military and civilian personnel
for any
offenses connected with rebellion. Special tribunals were
also
set up to hear cases arising out of civil disorders, such
as the
religious riots in Zaria in March 1987.
The most controversial decree remained Decree Number 2.
In
1986 Babangida extended the initial detention period from
three
to six months but rescinded the extension after a public
outcry.
However, he extended detention authority to the Ministry
of
Internal Affairs in addition to the police and military
authorities. In mid-1989 seventy to ninety persons were
being
held under its provisions, and in October the Civil
Liberties
Organisation appealed to the government to abrogate the
decree
and to release all those detained under it. In January
1990, the
FMG amended the decree to shorten the precharge detention
period
to six weeks from six months, but in March the minister of
justice stated that the decree would continue until the
inauguration of the Third Republic.
Babangida's regime took additional legal and
enforcement
measures to combat illegal drug smuggling, including
setting up
special drug tribunals that meted out long prison terms
and heavy
fines; under these tribunals 120 convictions were attained
by
late 1987. Air transport laws were also toughened to deal
with
drug trafficking, and in November 1989 the minister of
justice
announced that a special tribunal would be set up to try
air
transport crimes. In October 1988, the minister of defense
announced the establishment of a special "drug squad" to
apprehend drug traffickers at home and abroad. Decree
Number 48
of January l990 established a National Drug Law
Enforcement
Agency to eliminate the growing, processing,
manufacturing,
selling, exporting, and trafficking of hard drugs, and the
decree
prescribed stiffer penalties for convicted offenders.
Although
Babangida had abolished the death penalty for convicted
drug
dealers, by the end of the decade there were public calls
to
restore it. Stricter security measures were introduced at
Lagos
International Airport in 1989 to curb a crime wave there,
and a
plan was instituted in August 1989 to control black market
activities.
The worldwide scope of crime demanded international
cooperation to combat it. In l982 Nigeria and Cameroon
decided to
conclude extradition agreements. Nigeria also signed a
regional
security, law enforcement, and extradition treaty with
Benin,
Ghana, and Togo in December 1984; the treaty covered
criminal
investigation, dissident activities, currency and drug
trafficking, and other criminal and security matters. In
1987
Nigeria and the United States concluded a mutual law
enforcement
agreement covering narcotics trafficking and expanded
cooperation
in other key areas. A related antidrug memorandum of
understanding with the United States in March 1990
provided for a
joint task force on narcotics and assistance to the new
National
Drug Law Enforcement Agency. A similar legal assistance
pact with
Britain to combat crime and drug trafficking was signed in
September 1989. Nigeria also concluded an antidrug
trafficking
accord with Saudi Arabia in October 1990.
In the final analysis, domestic conditions will likely
determine the fate of the Babangida regime and its
successors for
the foreseeable future. Although externally secure,
Nigeria's
internal problems were legion and daunting. The most
salient were
political fragility and instability; a military determined
to be
the final arbiter of political life; endemic domestic
discord
deeply rooted in ethnic and religious cleavages;
overtaxed,
ineffective, corrupt, and politicized internal security
forces
and penal institutions; and anticrime measures hopelessly
inadequate to the task. Under such conditions, Nigeria
faced
major challenges in its political transition to the Third
Republic.
* * *
There is voluminous literature on Nigerian military
history
and national security affairs. Much relevant material is
published in Nigeria but is not readily accessible abroad.
Nigeria's regional strategic situation and outlook are
evaluated by John M. Ostheimer and Gary J. Buckley's
chapter,
"Nigeria," in Security Policies of Developing
Countries;
and by Pauline H. Baker's "A Giant Staggers: Nigeria as an
Emerging Regional Power" in African Security Issues
and
"Nigeria: The Sub-Saharan Pivot" in Emerging Power:
Defense
and Security in the Third World. Its participation in
the
ECOWAS defense pact is examined in Michael J. Sheehan's
"Nigeria
and the ECOWAS Defence Pact"; its maritime interests and
strategy
are discussed in Sheehan's "Nigeria: A Maritime Power?"
and in
Olutunde A. Oladimeji's "Nigeria on Becoming a Sea Power."
Bassey
Eyo Ate's "The Presence of France in West-Central Africa
as a
Fundamental Problem to Nigeria" and Ekido J.A. MacAnigboro
and
Aja Akpuru Aja's "France's Military Policy in Sub-Saharan
Francophone States: A Threat to Nigeria's National
Security" have
analyzed the Franco-Nigerian security dilemma. Julius
Emeka
Okolo's "Nuclearization of Nigeria" and Oye Ogunbadejo's
"Nuclear
Capability and Nigeria's Foreign Policy" discuss Nigeria's
nuclear policy options.
Data on military forces and order of battle are
available in
such annual publications as The Military Balance,
published by the International Institute for Strategic
Studies in
London, and the various Jane's yearbooks. Supplementary
information is available in John Keegan's World
Armies and
in the annual Defense and Foreign Affairs Handbook.
Statistics and other information on arms transfers,
military
spending, and armed forces are contained in the United
States
Arms Control and Disarmament Agency's annual World
Military
Expenditures and Arms Transfers and in the Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute's annual World
Armaments and Disarmament.
Internal security and human rights conditions are
evaluated
annually in the Amnesty International Report and in
the
United States Department of State's Country Reports on
Human
Rights Practices. The International Law of Human
Rights in
Africa, compiled by M. Hamalengwa et al., is a useful
reference for African states.
Country briefs on police forces are found in John M.
Andrade's World Police and Paramilitary Forces and
in
Harold K. and Donna Lee Becker's Handbook of the
World's
Police. Alan Milner's now-dated The Nigerian Penal
System provides essential historical background that
is
supplemented by Oluyemi Kayode's chapter, "Nigeria," in
International Handbook of Contemporary Developments in
Criminology.
Finally, specialized current news sources and surveys
are
indispensable for research on contemporary national
security
affairs. The most useful and accessible include the annual
Africa Contemporary Record, and such periodicals as
Africa Research Bulletin, Africa
Confidential,
Defense and Foreign Affairs Weekly, Jane's
Defence
Weekly, International Defense Review, and the
most
useful single source, African Defence/Afrique
Defense.
(For further information and complete citations,
see
Bibliography.)
Data as of June 1991
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