Nigeria – Events of 2016: Key International Actors
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Key International Actors
International actors, notably the United Kingdom, United States, European Union, and United Nations significantly improved their support to the Nigerian government in dealing with the Boko Haram conflict. Increased assistance in form of military training, supply of intelligence, surveillance, and communication equipment might be an indication of confidence in President Buhari’s promise of military reform.
In an apparent reversal of the former assistance policy to the Nigerian military suspected of rights violations, the US donated 24 mine-resistant and armor-protected vehicles valued at about $11 million to the army in January. In mid-September, Congress was notified of plans to sell 12 A-29 Super Tucano light attack aircraft and weapons, including laser guided rockets and unguided rockets, valued at over $592 million. Critics of the move have expressed concern about the human rights implications of this sale, given the absence of genuine reform in the Nigerian military.
The UK also stepped up support to the Nigerian military in 2016, sending 300 personnel to provide medical, infantry, air defense and counter insurgency training. During the visit of then UK minister of state, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Baroness Anelay to Nigeria in February, the UK government announced a donation of £6.7 million (US$8.4 million) to support humanitarian assistance in the northeast. The EU, UN, and World Bank established a tripartite recovery program for the six insurgency-affected northeast states.
A Post-Insurgency Recovery and Peace-building Assessment commissioned by the group in January valued the cost of repairing damage to the region at $5.9 billion. In January, the head of the EU delegation in Nigeria, Michel Arrion, said the EU had set aside a trust fund to assist in the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the beleaguered northeast.
In a November 2016 report, the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), found that none of the allegations of crimes committed by so-called Fulani herdsmen or by government forces against pro-Biafarn protesters and civilians caught in the fight against Niger Delta Avengers were within the ICC’s jurisdiction. The office continues an analysis of the Zaria incident involving members of the IMN as well as the assessment of national efforts to prosecute crimes committed in the Boko Haram violence as part of a preliminary examination of the situation in Nigeria.
In November 2015, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights urged the Nigerian government to review the SSMPA in order to prohibit violence and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity and ensure access to HIV prevention, treatment, and care services for LGBT individuals.
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