The Human Rights Watch has urged the United State’s President, Barack Obama, to discuss Nigeria’s Same Sex Prohibition Act with the visiting President Muhammadu Buhari, with a view to encouraging him to repeal it.
The law, which was passed during the administration of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, criminalises public display of affection between same-sex partners and prevents organisations from advocating the rights of lesbians, gays and bisexual people.
The HRW, in a statement issued in Washington DC and posted on its website on Monday, urged Obama to discuss the law, which it said “needs a repeal,” with Buhari during his visit to the US.
The organisation said that Buhari’s visit to Washington was an important opportunity to re-evaluate the US-Nigeria relationship. But it warned the US to approach commitment to Nigerian government with caution. Any future assistance, it suggested, should be tied to a condition that the country will uphold relevant international human rights laws.
“If the US is discussing further financial or technical support for Nigeria’s security forces, it should insist on clear benchmarks on how they will ensure respect for human rights,” HRW stated.
The HRW Nigeria researcher, Mausi Segun, was also quoted by a foreign online media, english.rfi.fr, as saying, “This law serves no purpose at all. It restricts the right to freedom of assembly and association.”
The HRW said that corruption and documented human rights abuses were among the issues it wanted Obama to discuss with his Nigerian counterpart who is currently on his first official visit to Washington DC since his inauguration on May 29.
It charged Obama to pressurise Buhari to suspend and prosecute any member of Nigeria’s security forces, including senior officers that had been linked with human rights abuses in the past.
The organisation said a letter containing its demands was earlier sent to the White House.
It recalled that Nigerian security forces had been implicated in “grave violation” of human rights and international humanitarian laws, including “incommunicado detention, extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances.”
It added, “The Nigerian Police Force was also credibly implicated in several highly-publicised extrajudicial killings of Boko Haram members or suspects. Almost no one has been held to account for the human rights crimes.”
With the appointment of new service chiefs, it urged Obama to “Encourage Buhari to keep his commitment to ensure that government security forces respect human rights and to address the endemic corruption that has deprived many Nigerians of their basic rights.”
Since Buhari assumed office, the HRW has consistently canvassed the prosecution of military officers who allegedly violated human rights, especially in the North-East.
On Wednesday, the Nigerian researcher of the body urged the newly-appointed service chiefs to suspend indicted personnel and prosecute them, in order to prove their loyalty to Buhari’s commitment to the rule of law.
Segun said that the move would signal a clear departure from the past when nothing was done about reported cases of human rights violations.
“They should act to overhaul the rules of engagement to conform to Nigeria’s obligations under the international humanitarian laws; give clear instructions to military personnel to ensure that their conduct is in compliance with the rules and, immediately, suspend any member of the security forces where there is a credible evidence of involvement in serious human rights abuses,” she said in a post on the organisation’s website.
Segun said government’s failure to bring those allegedly responsible for the alleged abuses to book was a major demand by communities ravaged by Boko Haram.
Back home, there is a groundswell of online protest over an attempt to possibly tamper with Nigeria’s legislation banning same-sex marriage.
But one Kenechukwu Ojukwu, who commented on Facebook, urged Buhari to be proactive in the manner he relates with the US officials on the issue.
He suggested, “He should not wait for Obama to raise the issue. He should tell him how disappointed Nigerians are about the way America has taken the place of Sodom and Gomorrah. He should tell Obama that more than 98 per cent of Nigerians are anti-gay.”
Source : punch
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