ESCRS & Corruption In Nigeria
Although almost every government since 1960 has promised to raise ethical standards and restore accountability and transparency in governance, massive looting of the nation’s wealth and resources by high ranking state officials has remained a permanent feature of the country’s political life.
In fact, over the years, the Nigerian political elites have generally sought to acquire the wealth they needed to make them the richest in the land, hoping thereby to gain political base, influence, legitimacy and identity.
At the same time, Nigerian governments generally have circumvented virtually all mechanisms designed to eradicate a culture of impunity and promote accountability of public officials.
Corruption in Nigeria is as old as the country itself, though its nature, scope, and consequences have varied considerably over the years. Indeed, from the late colonial period to date, commentators have expressed concern about the level of venality in the country. According to Tignor, the British used their worry about political corruption in Nigeria to argue that the transfer of power ought to be slowed down.
A considerable amount of bribery, nepotism and the use of political office for personal enrichment existed in late colonial Nigeria. Allegations of maladministration and dishonesty led the colonial Government to establish a commission headed by Bernard Storey to investigate the activities of Lagos Town Council.
The ensuing report contained the first extended public discussion of widespread corrupt administrative practices in Nigeria.
The report illustrated the numerous ways in which individuals were forced to pay for ordinary and essential services. Tignor quoted Storey as saying that, “running like a brightly coloured thread through the tangled skein of the Council’s administration has been the subject of honesty or the lack of it-of corruption.
I could not get away from it at the public inquiry; it was mentioned in connection with almost every matter brought before me.” According to Tignor, Storey’s findings made the Western regional regime remove the Lagos town councillors from office and installed a caretaker administration.
Similar investigations were later conducted throughout Southern Nigeria. Thus, the Eastern Regional Assembly brought a motion to investigate the town council over allegations of corruption.
The investigating team which published its report in 1955 found evidence of bribery in the letting of contracts, favouritism in the allocation of market stalls, and illegal payments from junior members of staff to their seniors for large increases in their emoluments. The report concluded, however, that the corruption which existed would “not prevent Port Harcourt Town Council developing into a fairly efficient organ of government.”
In Onisha, an inquiry conducted by a British observer O. P. Gunning into the administration of the District Council revealed ample circumstantial evidence of incompetence and serious corruption on the part of sections of the Council and of the executive staff.
According to Tignor, Gunning stated that, “the activities of the Council as a whole have come to be regarded by the general public of Onisha as a public scandal.” Most parts of the East were affected by allegations of “systematic corruption and dishonesty,” thus forcing the appointment of a commission to inquire into bribery and corruption throughout the whole of the East.
Although the commission was deeply divided, and submitted two separate reports, there were charges of gross corruption against two powerful regional political figures: the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Land- leading to their eventual resignations.
However, the Foster-Sutton commission of inquiry into allegations reflecting on official conduct of the premier of the Eastern region of Nigeria found no evidence of the pilfering of state funds and revealed no punishable offences, although it concluded that the behaviour of the premier (Dr Azikiwe) “had fallen short of the expectations of honest, reasonable people.”
In the West, the Nicholson commission of inquiry published a report indicting National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (N.C.N.C.) politician, and the principal leader of the Ibadan District Council Adegoke Adelabu, of corruption. Nicholson was quoted as saying that, Adelabu “behaved corruptly, driven by his lust for power and a sense of opportunism.”
The British colonial office demanded Adelabu’s resignation and forbade him from serving in ministerial capacities at higher levels. However, Nicholson found the District Council to be free of gross maladministration.
In the North, Abubakar Balewa, who later became Nigeria’s first Prime Minister, in 1950 publicly condemned “the twin curses of bribery and corruption.” Nevertheless, unlike the situations in most parts of the country, there were neither British appointed commissions of inquiry, nor published reports condemning individual politicians.
Although corruption was also a reality in the region, those in the North sought to control the damage and control corruption by promoting reforms from behind the scenes.
Although the actual amount of political corruption in the country during this period is difficult to determine, its actual presence cannot be contested. In fact, there were reports that almost all the regional governments plundered financial surpluses obtained through statutory control of export-crop marketing.
The statement by the colonial office would appear to capture the general situation: “there is a lot of fraud going on in the country, and many of us are exploiting the ignorance of the masses to line our pockets. Can’t we try to be honest? A self-government, founded on fraud, deceit, and corruption, will not last.”
The corrupt behaviour of most Nigerian political elites during this period clearly set the stage for a more resilient generation of corrupt public officials that have since independence plundered Nigeria’s wealth and resources, with almost absolute impunity.
Shortly after independence, in 1962, a new commission of inquiry headed by Justice Coker was established to investigate allegations of corruption in the Western Region. The Coker Commission issued a four-volume report detailing administrative excesses in the region. The report reported the misuse of public funds for private and political gain.
According to it, “the investments made in the Region were important and but for political considerations which were certainly uppermost constituted a most flagrant breach of trust by which the peoples of the Western Region have been robbed of the financial benefits to which they are entitled from the Western Regional Marketing Board.”
According to Tignor, the Commissioners took the view that the National Investment and Properties Company was formed for the main purpose of providing funds for the Action Group, and held its leader Obafemi Awolowo responsible for much of what had been “illicitly distributed.”
The Commissioners stated further that Awolowo’s scheme “was to build around him with money an empire financially formidable both in Nigeria and abroad-an empire in which dominance would be maintained by him by the power of the money which he had given out.”
Fresh opportunities were created at the national level in the 1970s, and early 1980s, by the relatively enormous increases in public receipts from oil, obtained through compulsory public acquisition of majority shares in the oil-producing companies, as well as through taxation.
Although spoliation was widespread and well-documented, prosecutions in court were rare. The prevailing climate of impunity ensured that the practice of spoliation flourished unchecked. Furthermore, despite its negative impacts on the economic and social life of most Nigerians, the ability of individuals or groups to seek redress was seriously constrained.
The Mohammed-Obasanjo Administration set up an Assets Investigation Panel in 1975 to investigate the assets of state governors, federal commissioners, and high-ranking officials. Those found guilty of corruption were dismissed summarily, and the government confiscated their assets.
However, the second republic witnessed increased level of venality by high-ranking government officials. As the Chairman of the Nigerian Anti-Corruption Commission, Justice Akanbi commented: “we are all witnesses to the horrifying disclosures at the end of the second republic, of fantastic amounts of wealth unlawfully accumulated by persons who normally would not own such wealth.”
Under the Buhari Administration, many politicians of the second republic were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment for corruption and abuse of office. They were also asked to repay funds they were alleged to have stolen. However, corruption cases were heard and sentences imposed by military tribunals that did not demonstrate real independence. The process as a whole was not in full conformity with international standards of fair trial. Further, the efforts of the government would seem to be the exception, rather than the rule.
The process was also selective because massive corruption in the military hierarchy itself was mostly ignored, though well-documented. Lieutenant General Oladipo Diya, the Chief of General Staff in Abacha’s Administration, admitted that the military had come to symbolize corruption, but argued that it would be “impracticable” to probe the affairs of ‘millions of Nigerians.’
He stated further that it would be inexpedient for the new government to challenge past corruption. Implicit in this contention is the ‘wisdom’ of forgetting about past corruption, and focusing on the future ones.
The General Babangida’s regime that assumed power in 1985 not only released most of the public officials awaiting trial and those convicted of corruption but also rehabilitated them by offering them appointive positions. Babangida also restored to their original owners’ assets forfeited to the government.
In 1989, the Babangida Administration set up a National Committee on Corruption and other Economic Crimes under the chairmanship of Justice Kayode Esho, a retired Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
The Committee’s main task was to identify the causes and the possible extent of corruption in the country. In addition, it examined the deficiencies in the existing legislation on corruption and other economic crimes. The Committee was asked to suggest remedies, which would lead to the removing of the incidence of corruption as well as improvements to the existing legislation.
The Committee, after extensive consultations, public hearings, and visits to other countries, submitted its report to the federal government on September 5, 1990. The Committee found unsatisfactory several legal rules dealing with corruption and offered instead a single law to deal comprehensively with corruption and other economic crimes. The Committee also recommended the establishment of an independent commission to tackle corruption.
The government’s handling of the report and the scale of comprehensive corruption and outright plunder of the national wealth and resources under the Babangida Administration, however, showed that General Babangida never seriously intended to address corruption. Babangida’s own Political Bureau of 1987 attested to the level of political corruption in the country at the time.
According to it, “corruption pervades all strata of the Nigerian society-from the highest levels of the political and business elites to the ordinary person in the village.” In effect, the Committee on corruption was set up merely as a ploy to mollify the public while the administration continued its expropriation of the nation’s wealth and resources.
According to Larry Diamond, a New aspect involves widespread stories of corrupt conduct by the President himself. Never before in Nigeria has the head of state been so widely suspected of extensive personal involvement in corruption.
Tales have been circulating for years of Babangida’s large cash gifts to military officers, cabinet ministers, traditional rulers, and potentially contentious opponents; of Mercedes Benz cars given to major newspaper editors and directors of state broadcasting corporations; of the president’s secret personal investments in banks and companies; off-the-books oil being lifted by private tankers. While none of these stories has been publicly documented, they have been conveyed by diverse and well placed sources with enough consistency to lend them an air of plausibility.
Thus, under Babangida, corruption became the raison d’être of government. While Babangida now lives in a fifty-bedroom mansion in Minna, Nigeria, several of the billions of dollars, including a $12 billion windfall realized from crude oil during the Gulf war remains unaccounted for, said to be scattered around North American and European banks.
Arguably the most powerful Nigerian because of his unbelievable wealth, Babangida, the self-acclaimed “evil genius”, became virtually untouchable.
According to reports, Babangida backed the current government of Obasanjo with a huge amount of money during Obasanjo’s election campaign in 1999. Further, almost half of the previous and current members of Nigerian parliament are reported to be on his pay-roll. In short, Babangida was “generous” with state money, dispensed patronage and his Government stands out as having made many persons billionaires.
After General Babangida’s resignation in August of 1993 and the short-lived Shonekan’s interim government, the Abacha Administration, with General Abacha himself heading the pack of plunderers, showed an insatiable appetite for wealth. Abacha surrounded himself with compromised military officers and a civilian class who helped him loot and plunder the nation’s resources with absolute impunity.
Abacha, probably the most feared leader Nigeria has ever had, established a predatory relation with the Nigerian economy. He deployed the entire machinery of the state, including its repressive apparatus, to extract wealth from the economy. Arguably, Abacha is the most corrupt leader that Nigeria ever produced. One commentator suggests that, “most of Nigeria’s rulers have been crooked, but Sani Abacha was probably more crooked than the rest.”
In the months following his death, revelations about the massive scale of corruption in his regime began to surface. General Abubakar who succeeded Abacha instituted an internal government investigation to track where the money had gone, but he resisted opposition demand for a public investigation. Under Abacha, several billions of dollars from the Nigerian treasury were illegally and fraudulently transferred to North American and European banks.
Deploying a circle of family members, trusted aides and business associates, Abacha was reported to have siphoned $2.3 billion cash from Treasury, awarded contracts worth $1 billion to front companies and took $ 1 billion in bribes from foreign contractors.
According to reports, Abacha’s wife was placed under house arrest after attempting to flee the country with several trucks full of foreign currencies. Further, about $2 billion was transferred in the 1990s from public funds to private accounts abroad held principally by members of the Abacha family.
Much of what Abacha plundered during his stay in power may never be known, let alone repatriated. It should be noted that the Swiss Federal Banking Commission named a dozen banks, including Credit Suisse, as having failed to exercise due diligence in vetting depositors linked to Abacha who had together paid in $660 million. Much of this money had come into Switzerland from banks in the United Kingdom and the United States, and there had been flows back to the United Kingdom.
The military government headed by General Abdulsalami Abubakar in 1998 recovered some funds from Abacha’s family and two former ministers that had apparently been appropriated in a fraudulent buy-back of Russian-held debt, but there were no prosecutions. Nor was there a full disclosure and accountability with respect to the monies recovered.
Similarly, the Obasanjo government has recovered further funds and had some of Abacha’s private accounts frozen. It should be noted that Abacha family also agreed in principle to surrender about $1.2 billion of their wealth under a new compromise deal with the Government.
This was considered a full and final settlement of what the Government believed the late Gen. Abacha looted from the treasury, although the government reported in November 2003 that it had reached agreement with the Swiss authorities for the return of close to $660, traceable to Abacha.
While the government is pursuing money stolen by Abacha, however, it has looked the other way from the looted money under earlier administrations, especially that of General Babangida. Yet, the leadership of Babangida Administration is reputed to have trailed that of Abacha in terms of the scope and degree of depredations by their respective regimes.
According to reports, the Obasanjo Administration refused offers by experts, including those from UN, to trace monies looted from Nigeria during the Babangida regime, but encouraged the pursuit of Abacha stolen funds.
Furthermore, most of the money recovered is reported to have found its way back to private purse of high-ranking government officials, and rarely returned back to the treasury. If Abacha were alive, probably no government would have dared confront him with allegations of corruption, let alone seek justice, forfeiture and restitution.
The impression created seems to be that of a political vendetta against the Abacha’s family, not a genuine commitment to the eradication of political corruption in the country. This proposition will be well-grounded if one considers that it was Abacha who jailed President Obasanjo in 1996, for allegedly planning to overthrow his regime.
The above is not to suggest, however, that the Obasanjo Administration has not taken any steps to deal with corruption. Quite the contrary. At least, when contrasted to the previous regimes, the Obasanjo Administration has consistently put the issue on the national agenda, although very little has been achieved, because the commitment on the part of the Government is largely rhetorical.
Perhaps, one concrete achievement of the Administration is that it resurrected a report on corruption that was dumped by the previous regimes and thereafter proposed an anti-corruption bill to the parliament, thereby instigating the promulgation of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, 2000.
Furthermore, on assumption of office, the Obasanjo Administration also set up several committees to investigate, analyze and proffer solutions to the human rights abuses, including corruption, said to have been committed by past administrations. A Commission of Inquiry known as Oputa Panel was set up in 1999 to investigate human rights abuses that have occurred since 1966.
However, although the Commission made several recommendations to redress past injustices and prevent future violations, they are yet to be made public, let alone implemented. There are reports that powerful individuals in the country are obstructing any Government action on the report, though it would seem the government itself is disinterested, for political reasons, in taking any action on the report.
Also, the Obasanjo Administration has appointed panels to investigate appointments and contracts made during the period leading to the transition to civilian rule, where billions of dollars were reportedly plundered and purloined, and into failed contracts and fraudulent land transactions under previous governments.
Despite these efforts, however, nothing tangible has been achieved in terms of eradicating or even reducing the level of political corruption in Nigeria. In effect, the efforts to date have produced no largely results and, the practice of spoliation remains, if not intensified.
Although the current democratic space has allowed a limited enjoyment of human rights, including free speech, the return of democracy has neither resulted in reduction of political corruption nor an improved enjoyment of economic and social rights by the majority of Nigerians.
Throughout President Obasanjo first term in office that ended in May 2003, allegations of corrupt inducement by the executive to the parliament abound. High-ranking federal ministers and state commissioners were indicted for massive looting, but rarely brought to justice. In 2001, the Nigerian senate instituted a probe into its financial affairs after allegations of corruption.
According to the report by the Senate Committee, many contract awards and other payments were authorised by the late Okadigbo, a former president of the senate, and a dozen other Senate officers to themselves or contractors with whom they were associated. Payments authorised by Okadigbo alone were said to amount to about $2.7 million and included about $40, 000 for ‘Christmas welfare.’
However, all the senators involved were cleared of any wrongdoing by another committee of the senate. The impression is that politicians plundered so much money from the treasury because of fear that the military might return, and wanted to “keep” enough for their retirement, and to ensure their future affluence.
Others were said to be involved in the “stealing game” because of fear that they might lose their bids for second terms, or to amass enough money for election campaigns. Whatever the reasons for the theft of national resources and wealth might be, its consequences for the vulnerable sectors of the population, are far reaching.
Reports of high level corruption among the members of the National Assembly, however, are still commonplace in the news and commentaries. Virtually all the branches of government, including the criminal justice system (i.e. the police and the courts) are affected.
Corruption generally flourishes in Nigeria because no effective control mechanisms are available and governments have lacked the political power to deal the problem. It is therefore not surprising that apart from Abacha, no Nigerian president has been brought to justice on corruption charges.
The result of the failure of governments, (including the current one), to bring high-ranking state officials to justice has precipitated corruption among public servants that also pillage the state resources. In short, at the beginning of a second term of Obasanjo Administration, there is no evidence of real change. One commentator succinctly described the situation:
Unfortunately, the euphoria that greeted the enthronement of democracy in Nigeria has been, so to speak, cut short by putrid and shameful dance involving our highest political office holders.
From the certificate forgery and perjury implicating ex-speaker Salisu Buhari, Bola Tinubu, Evan Enwerem etc. to contract award cum anticipatory approval racket that rocked the senate to the allegation of corruption against the executive back to the sword of probe or Damocles now dangling over the House of Representatives, the whole is a dance in a shameful celebration of corruption.
There is no serious watchers of political events in Nigeria right now who will not be scandalized by the monumental corruption in virtually all our so-called exalted offices since the past one year.
Many observers of the political trend in Nigeria argue that there is little chance that the second coming of the Obasanjo Administration would lead to a positive and progressive change or improvement.
Given the widespread allegations of corruption before and during the April 2003 general elections, it would seem ludicrous to expect that the next four years would not witness more or even worst cases of grand corruption in the country.
Meanwhile, citizens’ expectations of enjoyment of basic necessities of life under a democratic dispensation have dimmed, as the nation’s wealth and resources that should naturally be available to meet those needs are plundered, almost daily, by the country’s political ‘leaders’, without saturation or remorse.
NIGERIA, SPOLIATION, AND ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RIGHTS
Given the persistent and widespread practice of spoliation by governments in Nigeria, it is not surprising that such practice has precipitated absolute poverty, directly impinging on the full enjoyment of economic and social rights of the people.
Massive and direct denial of the right to work, and the right to an adequate standard of living, including the rights to food, housing, health and education, are commonplace. Like elsewhere in Africa that the practice is prevalent, spoliation has become the most significant obstacle to economic development.
In effect, Nigeria’s international legal obligations to achieve these rights progressively and within the context of its available resources have been honored more in the breach than in the observance.
Acts of depredations by high ranking state officials have fuelled ethnic clashes, social unrest, and lack of confidence in the police and security forces, and the independence of the judiciary.
Further, in spite of the country’s rich natural resources, the mal-distribution of income has worsened, adversely affecting the most vulnerable, including the poor, women, children and the aged, and throwing them into deeper poverty. According to President Obasanjo,
Our beloved nation had been virtually on the brink of collapse. At least the past one and a half decades have been characterized by calamitous retrogression in almost every conceivable sphere of life….
The poverty gap in our nation has widened during the years of misrule and millions of our people are ravaged by hunger and weakened by diseases… The grim condition of many of our citizens was worsened by the deterioration of public services whereby access to pipe-borne water and affordable health-care became a pipe dream and the supply of electricity became epileptic and irregular. Communication networks are outdated, expensive, and unreliable in an era in which globalization has made such service ubiquitous and cheap.
In its concluding observations on Nigeria, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, expressed its concern about the high percentage of unemployment and underemployment among Nigerian workers, particularly among agricultural workers, due to the neglect of agricultural sector.
According to the Committee, this has led to massive migrations in search of work by agricultural workers into the cities, where they live in poverty and degrading conditions. Further, the Committee expressed concern that women suffer discrimination in the workplace, particularly in access to employment, in promotion to higher positions and in equal pay for work of equal value.
The Committee noted that there were repeated violations of the right to strike, as the Government had repressed workers’ industrial actions for better salaries. It also expressed concern about the Government’s policy of retrenchment aimed at expelling up to 200,000 employees in the public sector, without adequate compensation. Moreover, the Committee stated that it was dissatisfied with the inadequate social security system.
Although the Nigerian Delegation argued that the Nigerian Government did not interfere with the private sector where it stated most workers are engaged, it did not provide any statistics or other information about the degree of enjoyment by employees of the private sector of their social security rights.
Similarly, the government failed to provide any statistics about its stated attempts to spread the social security net over the heads of the majority of the unemployed poor. Indeed, as the Committee observed, the National Nigerian Insurance Trust Fund did not cover all the needy. The Committee also stated that social security benefits are voluntary in the private sector, depending on the employers’ whims.
With respect to the right to food, the Committee noted the widespread problem of children suffering from malnutrition and deplored a situation where many children have to resort to prostitution to feed themselves.
According to the Committee, almost thirty percent of Nigerian children suffer malnutrition and its damaging consequences. The Committee cited a UNICEF report to illustrate the prevalence of hunger and malnutrition in Nigeria.
It also cited the World Bank estimates to the effect that at least 17 million Nigerians are undernourished, many of them children. It thus expressed concern about “the widening gap between the rate of the population growth and the demand for food on the one hand, and the rate of the (falling) food production, on the other hand.” Concerning the right to housing, the Committee commented that it was:
Appalled at the great number of homeless people [and] the acute housing problem in Nigeria where decent housing is scarce and relatively expensive. The urban poor, especially women and children, are forced to live in make-shift cheap dumps or shelters in appalling and degrading conditions representing both physical and mental illnesses hazards.
The Committee also addressed the problem of the right to health in Nigeria. It condemned the gross under-funding and inadequate management of health services that led during the last decade to rapid deterioration of health infrastructures in hospitals.
Also, it deplored the situation whereby hospital patients had to buy drugs and to supply needles, syringes and suture threads, in addition to paying for bed space. As a result, many Nigerian doctors had chosen to migrate abroad.
Further, the Committee noted with alarm the extent of devastation that oil exploration had done to the environment and quality of life in the areas such as Ogoniland where oil has been discovered and extracted without due regard to the health and well-being of the people and their environment.
It deplored the failure of the government of Nigeria to abolish female genital mutilation, a practice which it held incompatible with the human rights of women and in particular with the right to health.
Furthermore, the Committee condemned the continuing existence of legal provisions, which permit the beating (“chastisement”) of women by their husbands. It expressed also concern about widespread polygamy in Nigeria on the ground that it is often incompatible with the economic and social rights of women.
With respect to the right to education, the Committee estimated the rate of school dropouts at the primary school age to be over 20 percent. According to the Committee, twelve million children hold one job or another; and up to 80 or more of those who go to school are crammed in dilapidated classrooms meant originally to take only a maximum of 40. Similarly, school children often had to carry with them their desks and chairs from their homes to the school.
Citing the reports by UNICEF, the Committee expressed concern about the “marked reduction in school age children going to school as parents cannot afford to pay the new drastically increased school fees imposed on primary and secondary school pupils.” It also attributed the poor educational quality to little teacher attention being devoted to school work because of poor salaries, thus leading to incessant strikes and school closures.
In addition, the Committee deplored the dramatic increase in university fees in 1997, where students in some universities were asked to pay ten times as much as other students. It noted that universities had suffered repetitive and long periods of closure, in addition to a brain drain in the academia.
Although the Committee noted that safe treated pipe-borne water was available to about fifty per dwellers, it also stated that only 30 percent of rural inhabitants had access to such a basic necessity of life. Overall, only 39 percent of Nigeria’s population has adequate access to clean drinking water.
In order to ensure that Nigeria complies with its obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Committee made a number of recommendations to the Nigerian government.
First, it asked the government to strengthen the authority of the Nigerian judiciary and the Human Rights Commission. Second, the Committee urged the Government to open-up to international organizations, U.N. organs and Specialized Agencies and to conduct constructive dialogues with them in openness and transparency with a view to restoring confidence in Nigeria’s intentions to implement its human rights obligations, including those under the Covenant.
Third, the Committee asked the government to respect and restore trade union freedoms and academic freedom; and the rights of minority and ethnic communities, including the Ogoni people, and provide full redress for the violations of the rights set forth in the Covenant that they may have suffered.
Fourth, the Committee called on the Government to cease and prevent, in law and in practice, all forms of social, economic and physical violence and discrimination against women and children.
Furthermore, the Nigerian Government was asked to enact legislation and ensure by all appropriate means protection against the many negative consequences, which have ensured child school dropouts, child labor, and child malnutrition.
Finally, the Committee urged the government to enforce the right to compulsory free primary education and to cease the massive and arbitrary evictions of people from their homes and take such measures as are necessary in order to alleviate the plight of those who are subject to arbitrary evictions or are too poor to afford a decent accommodation.
The concluding observations of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights highlighted above illustrate the extent to which individuals’ basic economic and social rights, such as the rights to food, housing, health and education, have been grossly denied, and the degree of Nigeria’s compliance, or more accurately, non-compliance, with its treaty obligations.
Although the Committee asked the Nigerian Government to submit a comprehensive second periodic report by January 1 2000, as of May 2010 no such report is known to have been submitted.
