23 October 2000
Lagos, Nigeria — Nigeria's Human Rights Violation Investigation Commission began sitting in Abuja Monday, more than a year after it was set up by President Olusegun Obasanjo to look into allegations of human rights abuses in the country.
The inaugural sitting of the commission, headed by Chukwudifu Oputa, a retired judge, was witnessed by Obasanjo and a host of top government officials at the National Centre for Women Development.
"The challenge here is that our history will no longer be written with the red ink of blood, it will no longer be written with the red ink of violations of human rights, but rather with the green ink of hope for a better tomorrow after the experiences of a bitter yesterday," Oputa said.
He said judicial murder, abuse of court processes and extra- judicial killings, were common features of "unpopular dictatorships" in Nigeria, referring to the string of brutal dictatorships in the country.
"There were detentions without trial, torture by security and law enforcement agents of government, extra-judicial executions and judicial murders," he added.
Throughout the inaugural proceedings, Obasanjo sat quietly among the observers and bluntly refused to make any speech, merely saying: "Today is entirely that of the commission."
The panel, modelled after South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, is aimed at healing the wounds of past human rights violations in Nigeria, especially the last 15 unbroken years of military rule that witnessed assassinations, abductions, torture, harassment and intimidation, among others.
"It will promote forgiveness, restore harmony to the polity, foster unity and growth and proffer lasting solutions that will address the history of events in the last 30 years of draconian laws," Oputa said.
The military ruled Nigeria for 30 of its 40 years of independence.
Though more than 10,000 cases were presented to the commission, the chairman said only 150 would be heard "because they were the only ones adjudged of serious and grievous nature."
After its public hearing in Abuja, which will last till 3 November, the commission will then shift base to the commercial city of Lagos where it will hear cases from the country's south- west 13 November to 8 December.
The hearings will continue in other geo-political zones of the country up till 2001.
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