By DPA
Lagos/Nairobi : Crooked politicians have “hijacked” democratic institutions in Nigeria by recruiting thugs and “godfathers” to prop up their careers, all while stealing public funds away from a desperately poor population, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report released Tuesday.
The report echoes condemnations by local and international observers following elections in April, which were largely deemed as fraudulent, mostly due to vote rigging and voter intimidation by politicians’ hoodlums.
“In place of democratic competition, struggles for political office are waged violently in the streets by thugs recruited by politicians,” HRW Africa director Peter Takirambudde said.
“Once in office, these politicians use their power to undermine basic human rights and enrich themselves at the expense of Nigeria’s impoverished populace.”
Through interviews with government officials, activists and the mafia-like “godfathers,” HRW said its report “Criminal Politics: Violence, ‘Godfathers’ and Corruption in Nigeria” documents politicians openly encouraging violence and the impunity that follows.
Politicians settle their scores in the streets of Africa’s most populous country, setting thugs to run amok on their opponents and intimidate voters – and never being held to account, the New York-based advocacy group said.
The “dysfunctional” governance is partly fuelled by “godfathers,” who aren’t looking to be elected, but have armies of young men who physically ensure political hopefuls make it into office – all in return for cash taken from public coffers.
“Law enforcement agencies have usually turned a blind eye to crimes linked to influential politicians or powerful godfathers, even where ample evidence of criminal wrongdoing exists,” said a HRW statement.
Nigeria endured military rule until 1999, when the civilian government of president Olusegun Obasanjo was voted in. But his election was widely criticized as fraudulent, and polls in 2003 and those in April this year were no less condemned.
Scores of people were killed in election-related violence in the 2007 polls, which brought President Umaru Yar’Adua to power despite a flurry of complaints of vote rigging by local and international observers.
While HRW said Yar’Adua was taking the first steps toward improving the state of Nigerian politics, the group urged the new leader to end impunity for the West African nation’s worst abusers of human rights.
Nigeria is blessed with an oil-wealth that hardly reaches the bottom rungs of society and ordinary Nigerians remain impoverished, while political leaders grab what they can.
The country is often ranked as one of the world’s most corrupt according to international anti-graft monitors.