Buhari slips on human rights in US visit

But for the pressure from some Western countries, led by America, the recently sacked army chiefs in Nigeria, prompted by their commander in chief, would have derailed the election that brought Muhammadu Buhari to power in March. Buhari is, of course, a president in need of urgent help to quell the insurgency in the country and to recover tens of billions of dollars stolen by past administration officials that so impoverished most Nigerians. The Obama administration has announced its readiness to help Buhari to meet these urgent needs, and more. Obama’s praise of Buhari’s well-earned ‘reputation of integrity’ during the latter’s recent visit to Washington shows that America wants Nigeria to succeed. Buhari, and indeed most Nigerians, remain grateful to America and her allies who made it possible for us to have something close to a free and fair election since June 1993. However, there are some issues that need the attention, not the contention, of Buhari.

America prides itself as a bastion of freedom, firmly anchored on the rule of law, at least officially. And she wants to spread that freedom around the world, especially on the issues of human rights, particularly women’s rights. Indeed, America’s recent interest in Nigeria reached its peak after the kidnap of the Chibok girls more than a year ago. The world saw America’s first lady brandishing the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls, and the world paid attention. Too much attention for the comfort of the occupants of Aso Rock. For when America and the world sought the cooperation of Abuja to bring back the girls, they drew a blank. There were also questions of gross violations of human rights by the Nigerian military. And the immediate past administration wasn’t ready to do anything about that either.

It was therefore hoped that Buhari, who also spoke against those violations while in opposition, would begin to tackle them once in power. And so his victory at the polls was celebrated by the whole world. But the goodwill shown to Nigeria may be in jeopardy because of the way president Buhari handled questions of human rights during his recent visit to Washington.

During his speech at the American Institute for Peace, Buhari expressed his frustration with what he called the ‘blanket application’ of the Leahy Law, a law which prohibits America from selling military weapons to states with credible allegations of human rights abuses by their military. The law, he said, has rendered the Nigerian military ‘largely impotent’ because they couldn’t obtain the appropriate weapons and technology they need to wage the war against Boko Haram. Buhari claimed the law is ‘unwittingly’ and ‘unintentionally’ helping those who are engaged in crimes. It was lost on the president that in this particular case, the groups engaged in crimes are not only Boko Haram but also the Nigerian armed forces.

Buhari’s claims of ‘unproven allegations of so called human rights violations’ rankled a few Americans, especially senator Patrick Leahy after whom the law was named. The senator promptly said that Buhari’s criticism of the law was ‘misdirected’, citing ‘well documented’ evidence by the State Department and respected human rights organizations of the atrocities committed by the Nigerian armed forces. Most Nigerians know exactly what Leahy is talking about. Whole villages have been razed to the ground by soldiers. Mass graves have been discovered where the military buried the people they were being paid to protect. Horrific video clips of horrendously gross violations of human rights by the military have circulated on the internet. Almost on a daily basis, there are summary executions of prisoners, indiscriminate attacks against civilians, torture, forced disappearances, extortion and rape perpetrated by the armed forces in the country. Buhari’s work is cut out for him if he is sincere about rooting out impunity in the country.

The second blunder has to do with homosexuality. While the Nigerian lawmakers uphold immunity for thieving politicians and stipulate only a 5-year jail term for human traffickers, they have unanimously passed a law stipulating a 14-year jail term for homosexuals and ten years for anyone who associates with them. In the north of Nigeria where Buhari comes from, just as in Mauritania, Sudan and Somalia, homosexuality carries the death penalty. So it was no surprise that President Buhari, according to Presidential Spokesperson, Femi Adesina, told a joint session of both the Senate and House committees on foreign affairs, that, ‘sodomy is against the law in Nigeria, and abhorrent to our culture’.

For many ultra-religious Africans, homosexuality is akin to cannibalism! They cite their ‘African culture,’ but mostly God, as having forever outlawed homosexuality as ‘unnatural’. But they conveniently forget that when they line up for visas or risk their lives to go to countries where gay marriage is legal. It’s lost on them that what attracts them to those countries is mostly their respect for human rights, including the rights of the LGBTQIA.

Homosexuality is not an issue for religion but rather for science and the law to decide. It is truly a human rights issue. The best case that can be made by the leaders of countries like Nigeria may be that their people don’t yet understand its human rights dimension, and so may need time—maybe decades—to be educated on that. (America is a good example here: it took more than half a century for the majority of Americans, especially their government, to accept the phenomenon of homosexuality.) But claiming it is a non-issue, or that it is against the law, as President Buhari did, is like claiming that apartheid was legal.

President Museveni of Uganda, who declared—rightly—that homosexuality existed before colonialism in Africa, had the good mind to seek the opinion of professionals on the issue. Their report stated that homosexuality is normal and natural, but like other human activities, needs to be regulated in order to protect the vulnerable. Museveni twisted their report by claiming that even in cases where homosexuality was deemed natural, nurture played a greater part. He forgot that without nurture, no one can be heterosexual either. But his predicament is understandable. Agreeing to the obvious conclusions of the study he commissioned would amount to political suicide. Buhari seems to be in the same position. But this is an area in which he has to use his hard earned moral authority to educate Nigerians, like Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu did in South Africa. And Buhari is the closest Nigeria has to a Mandela. He could do what Museveni did because he’d be honest with Nigerians about the result. He can also borrow a leaf from Pope Francis who, although unsuccessfully, tried to get his native Argentina to adopt civil unions, instead of marriage for gays, still expresses his love for homosexuals as children of God. Homosexuality is not a crime and any law that criminalizes it is oppressive.

You cannot expect help from a country like America, where the law is in fact supreme, at the expense of their laws. Presidents and other powerful people may indulge in impunity in other places. In America there is no impunity and no one has immunity against the law.

* Dr Uchenna Osigwe is Research Fellow, Laval University, Quebec, Canada.

* THE VIEWS OF THE ABOVE ARTICLE ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE PAMBAZUKA NEWS EDITORIAL TEAM

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