By FEMI FALANA
IN 1885 the British colonial regime deported King Jaja of Opobo to a
remote island in West Indies where he died in 1889.
His offence was that he had challenged the imperialist control of the
coastal trade. In 1941 Comrade Michael Imoudu, President of the
Nigerian Union of Railwaymen was deported from Lagos and banished
to his hometown, Auchi in the Benin Province as he was considered “a
potential threat to public safety” .
He only returned to Lagos in 1945 following the revocation of sections
57-63 of the General Defence Regulation, 1941 under which he had been
detained. There were other nationalist agitators and labour leaders who
were deported and banished to prevent them from taking part in the
struggle against colonialism. barbaric practice of deporting Nigerians was resuscitated by the
defunct military dictatorship. In particular, the reactionary regimes of
Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha resorted to the crude
harrassment of political opponents by deportation.
In 1992 the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi SAN, Dr Beko Ransome -Kuti and
I were deported from Lagos and detained at Kuje prison for challenging
the unending military rule of the Babangida junta. The retired General
Zamani Lekwot was deported from Kaduna and detained with us in the
prison. The following year we were also repatriated from Lagos and
banished to the same prison for leading peaceful rallies in Lagos against
the criminal annulment of the June 12 presidential election. In June
1994, the winner of the presidential election, Chief MKO Abiola was
deported from Lagos and detained in military custody in Kano, Borno
and Abuja.
In 1995, the chairman of the Campaign for Democracy (CD), Dr. Beko
Ransome-Kuti alerted the world that the secret trial of General Olusegun
Obasanjo and others by a Special Military Tribunal had been concluded
and that the convicts were being prepared for execution. For leaking
such information to the media the human rights leader was tried in
Lagos, jailed for life and deported to Katsina prison. The CD vice
chairman, Shehu Sanni was arrested in Kaduna, jailed for life in Lagos
and banished to Kirikiri maximum prison in Apapa. Four journalists viz:
Chris Anyanwu, Kunle Ajibade, Charles Mbah and Charles Obi who were
convicted for being accessories after the fact of treason i.e the 1995
phantom coup, were deported from Lagos and kept in separate prisons
in the northern states.
In 1996, Chief Fawehinmi SAN was once again deported from Lagos and
detained at the Bauchi prison while Femi Aborishade and I were
deported from Lagos and held at the Gumel and Mawadashi prisons (in
Jigawa State) respectively. Comrade Frank Kokori who was arrested in
Lagos was banished to Bama prisons in Borno state for 4 years. General
Obasanjo who was convicted in Lagos was deported to Yola prison.
His ex-deputy, General Shehu Yaradua was deported from Kaduna,
convicted in Lagos and held at various times in Kirikiri, Port Harcourt
and Abakaliki prisons .
Like King Jaja both Chief Abiola and General Yar’Adua died in suspicious
circumstances while they were in custody. But as deportation of colonial
subjects could not be justified even under colonial rule it was carried
out pursuant to special regulations. In the same vein, the military
dictators engaged in deportation of citizens under the preventive
detention decrees and the Prison Act.
Deportation of Poor People: It is common knowledge that the
beautification project of the Babatunde Fashola Administration has led
to the deportation of hundreds of the jetsam and the flotsam from Lagos
state to their states of origin.
Ban on okada
The elite and the media have been celebrating the ban on “Okada” from
the major roads and the removal of traders and area boys from the
streets. For understandable reasons, most of the hundreds of
thousands of poor people who have been displaced and dislodged in the
operation “keep Lagos clean” are of the Yoruba extraction.
In fact, on April 9,2009, when the Lagos State government deported 129
beggars of Oyo state origin and dumped them at Molete in Ibadan the
Alao Akala regime alleged that the action was aimed at sabotaging his
government. Just last week, some beggars of Osun State origin were
also deported by the Lagos State government and dumped at Osogbo.
It is sad to note that most Nigerians never took cognisance of the war
being waged by state governments against the poor and disadvantaged
citizens in the urban renewal policy until the much publicised case of
the 14 beggars of Anambra State origin who were deported in Lagos and
dumped in Onitsha about three weeks ago. In fact, it was the
condemnation of the deportation by the Governor of Anambra State, Mr.
Peter Obi that drew the attention of the elite to the unfortunate
development. However, in defence of its action the Lagos State
Government stated that it entered into an agreement with the Anambra
State Government through its liaison office in Lagos on the controversial
deportation.
Although the Anambra State government has not denied the allegation
that it was privy to the deportation of the 14 beggars it is on record
that in Decmber 2011 the Peter Obi Administration had deported 29
beggars to their states of origin i.e Akwa Ibom and Ebonyi states. Apart
from such official hypocrisy the Peter Obi regime did not deem it fit to
protest when the Abia State government purged its civil service of
“non-indigenes” in 2012. Many of the victims of the unjust policy who
hail from Anambra State were left in the lurch.
In June 2011, the Federal Capital Territory government deported 129
beggars to their respective states of origin. In May 2013, hundreds of
beggars were also removed from the streets and expelled from Abuja. Of
course, it is common knowledge that the FCT authorities has continued
to demolish residential houses without following due process in order to
“restore the masterplan of Abuja” which was distorted through
corruption and abuse of office. The majority of the victims of such
illegal demolitions who are poor have been dislocated and forced out of
FCT.
Last week, the Rivers State Government removed 113 Nigerians from the
streets of Port Harcourt and deported them to their states of origin. The
Akwa Ibom state government has just contacted its Lagos counterpart
of the planned deportation of two “mad” Lagosians roaming the streets
of Uyo. Many other state governments are busy deporting beggars, mad
men and other destitute in the on-going beautification of state capitals.
Those who are defending the Igbo beggars out of sheer ethnic
irredentism should be advised to examine the socio-economic
implications of the anti-people’s urbanisation policy being implemented
by the federal and state governments in the overall interests of the
masses.
The Illegality of Internal Deportation: Since deportation has been
resuscitated under the current political dispensation it has become
pertinent to examine the legal implications of the forceful deportation of
a group of citizens on account of their impecunious status. Although
street trading and begging have been banned in some states, it is
submitted, without any fear of contradiction, that there is no existing law
in Nigeria which has empowered the federal and state governments to
deport any group of Nigerian citizens to their states of origin.
Accordingly, the forceful removal of beggars from their chosen abode
and repatriation to their states of origin are illegal and unconstitutional
as they violate the fundamental rights of such citizens enshrined in the
Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 as amended. In
particular, deportation is an afront to the human rights of the beggars to
dignity of their persons (Section 34), personal liberty (Section 35),
freedom of movement (Section 41), and right of residence in any part of
Nigeria (Section 43).
National integration
Furthermore, the deportation of beggars and other poor people by the
Federal and State Governments is a repudiation of section 15 of the
Constitution which has imposed a duty on the State to promote national
integration. Since the political objective of the State imposes a duty on
the governments to ”secure full residence rights for every citizen in all
parts of the Federation” it is illegal to remove poor people from the
streets of state capitals without providing them with alternative
accommodation. By targetting beggars and the destitute and deporting
them to their states of origin the state governments involved are
violating Section 42 of the Constitution which has outlawed
discrimination on the basis of place of birth or state of origin.
In so far as Article 2 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples
Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act (Cap A9) Laws of the
Federation of Nigeria, 2004 has specifically banned discriminatory
treatment on the ground of “social origin, fortune, birth or other status” it
is indefensible to subject any group of citizens to harrassment on
account of their economic status. An urban renewal policy that has
provision for only the rich cannot be justified under Article 13 of the
African Charter which provides that every citizen shall have equal
access to the public services of the country.
In the celebrated case of the Minister of Internal Affairs v. Alhaji
Shugaba Abdulraham Darma (1982) 3 N.C.L.R. 915 the Court of Appeal
upheld the verdict of the Borno State High Court which had held that the
deportation of the Respondent (Alhaji Shugaba) from Nigeria to Chad by
the Federal Government constituted “a violation of his fundamental
rights to personal liberty, privacy and freedom to move freely throughout
Nigeria.” In the Director, State Security Service v. Olisa Agbakoba (1999)
3 NWLR (PT 595) 314 at 356 the Supreme Court reiterated that “It is not
in dispute that the Constitution gives to the Nigerian citizen the right to
move freely throughout Nigeria and to reside in any part thereof.”
Since deportation has denied the vicctims the fundamental right to
move freely and reside in any state of their choice it is illegal and
unconstitutional.
Fundamental human rights
It is indubitably clear that the fundamental human rights guaranteed by
the Constitution and the African Charter Act are not for the exclusive
preserve of the bourgeoisie but for the enjoyment of all Nigerian citizens
including beggars and other economically marginalised people. To that
extent no state government has the power to deport or enter into
agreements to repatriate any group of citizens to their states of origin.
The Socio-economic Challenge of Deportation
It ought to be made clear to the managers of the neo-colonial state that
there is no country which promotes social inequality that has
successfully outlawed the poor from existence.
This explains why beggars are found in large numbers on the streets of
major cities and in the ghettos of the United States of America – the
bastion of capitalism. The situation is bound to be worse in the
periphery of capitalism like Nigeria where the poverty rate has reached
an alarming proportion due to the failure of the State to provide for the
welfare and security of the people which is the primary purpose of
government.
The Federal and State governments should also be made to realize at all
times that beggars are Nigerian citizens who lack money, food and other
basic facilities to live decent lives. The authorities should stop
stigmatizing and harassing them and other citizens who have been
pushed to a state of penury by the gross mismanagement of the
economy by a selfish and short sighted ruling class. A nation that
complaints of inadequate funds to establish a social security scheme for
the majority of the people allowed a cartel of fuel importers to corner
$16 billion while oil thieves stole crude oil worth $7 billion on the high
seas in 2011 alone.
Yet the influential oil thieves and pirates are walking free on the streets
of our state capitals without any official harassment. Others who engage
in unprecedented corruption, fraud and other financial and economic
crimes have never been deported to their states of origin. It is high time
the government was restrained from holding the poor vicariously liable
for the crisis of underdevelopment of the country. Therefore, part of the
billions of naira being earmarked to build mega cities should be set
aside for the rehabilitation of beggars and the destitute.
There is no doubt that Lagos state is put under severe pressure, from
time to time, by millions of Nigerians who have been economically
displaced in their own states of origin. But unlike its counterparts the
Lagos state government has devised effective strategies to compel the
rich to pay taxes through their noses. In addition the monthly statutory
allocation of the state from the federation account is partly based on its
population. In the circumstance, the Lagos state government should take
from the rich to service the poor. As in the case of most of the “area
boys” who have been productively engaged by the Fashola
Administration the Lagos state government should formulate
programmes for the rehabilitation and resettlement of beggars and other
destitute to make them contribute to the economy of the state.
Conclusion
In his inaugural address on January 20, 1961 the United States
President, Mr. J.F. Kennedy warned that “if a free society cannot help
the many who are poor it cannot save the few who are rich”. About 40
years later, those cautionary words resonated in the case of Hoffman v.
South African Airways (2001) CHR 329 at 354 where Justice Ngcobo of
the Constitutional Court of South Africa stated that “Our Constitution
protects the weak, the marginalized, the socially outcast and the victims
of prejudice and stereotyping. It is only when these groups are protected
that we can be secure that our own rights are protected.”
With respect to the implementation of neo-liberal policies that have
continued to pauperise our people I am compelled to remind the ruling
class in Nigeria of the plea made by the Late Dr. Akinola Aguda in 1985
that “our new perspective in law and justice must be such as to
guarantee to each of our people food, drink, lodging, clothing, education
and employment in addition to the rights guaranteed to him so far by
our Constitution and our laws, so that justice may mean the same thing
to everyone.”
Finally, since the deporting state governments have no immigration
officials to police their borders there is no assurance that the deportees
will not find their way back to where they were deported . However in
view of the illegality of the deportation of poor people the governments
of the federal capital territory and the respective states are advised to
stop it without any further delay. If the practice is not discontinued the
deporting state governments should be prepared to defend their action
in Court. Sooner than later.
*FEMI FALANA, SAN is a Lawer