Gentlemen of the press, You are welcome to the world press briefing by the Global Amnesty Watch (GAW) in partnership with Conscience Nigeria to unveil plans for its International Seminar of Human Rights and Good Governance, which has been scheduled to hold at the International Conference Centre, Abuja, Nigeria on Tuesday April 18, 2017. With the theme of the seminar "Counter Insurgency: Human Rights and Good Governance in the context of the Nigerian Situation."
Conscience Nigeria, the Centre for Social Justice, Equity and Transparency (CESJET), Stand Up for Nigeria (SUN) are the local affiliates of the Global Amnesty Watch and partners for the event.
This seminar became necessary because we realize that those who work in the areas of collecting data and information, those who analyze the data and information, and those who publicize the outcomes of these activities do so using distorted templates. Let us quickly note that this distortion is nothing deliberate or any fault of these people who put themselves at great risks to undertake activities they rightly believe would reshape the world for the better especially as it pertain to governance and human right issues.
The distortion in our view, is the product of entrenched systems that built in discrimination in a manner that allow different yardsticks to apply to different countries depending on the economic and military power they wield. This, in some cases, created a situation where field workers start of their work from biased premises, having been handed shopping lists or formatted checklists that they must conform with even when the reality they meet on site loudly differ from the preconceived conclusion and recommendations they have been programmed to arrive at.
It must be admitted that while these guided field works deliver outcomes that "comply with global standards", their failure to offer context and accommodate prevailing local realities however leaves much to be desired. Government of countries that do not collaborate with some of these organizations to manipulate the outcome of these field works are thus judged harshly and often labelled in manners that delegitimize their rights to cater for their citizens to deliver security and good governance.
The distortion is further amplified when citizens are influence by the reports produced from such bias to think of themselves and their countries only in derogatory terms on one side of the scale while citizens of dominating countries think of themselves and their countries in superior terms, as people with the right to interfere in the affairs of others to secure both their economies and geo-regional interests. The vicious circle that result create scenarios in which citizens of the victimized countries are mentally conditioned to further damage their countries for foreign currency earning either as compromised field workers or as induced witnesses with the sole outcome of distorting facts.
This distorted information gathering and reporting have consequences that offer no positives. As opposed to drawing attention to and improving human rights issues, some of the fact finding intervention end up worsening the situation for local populations in the affected areas as armed groups and insurgents tend to exploit the incapacitation of defence forces each time reports are issued to criminalize legitimate law and security enforcement. Yet, efforts must be made to ensure that government forces operate within rules of engagement or are made to embrace rules of engagement if that has not been the case previously.
As the Defence forces of countries are being urged to adhere to rules of engagement, it is pertinent that those who monitor compliance with such charters are themselves not allowed to go rogue in their activities as this could open them up to becoming tools for agenda that may not augur well for the population in the area of interest. Organizations that monitor compliance with human rights and governance issues must therefore adopt something similar to rules of engagement – strict vetting of interviewees and witnesses, ensuring onsite visits, resorting to telephone interview only as a last resort, ruling out conflict of interest for witnesses, insulation against the interests and biases of state actors are among the items that should make such proposed charter.
Global Amnesty Watch in partnership with Conscience Nigeria is therefore hosting this International Seminar on Human Rights and Good Governance to create and deepen citizens' awareness about the grey areas of counter insurgency and human rights observance and enforcement. The seminar would explore areas that were previously cloaked in technicalities so that they will no longer be used to mislead the intellectual and decision making layers of the society.
Chief Speaker at the event is George Goldsmith from the Pentagon, an ex CIA expert in anti-terrorism campaign, who would be speaking on the role of non state actors in conflicts management, David Falt who is a Lawyer and working for the United Nations will be speaking on Human Rights Law and Conventions in winning the war against terrorism whilst Alexandra Thome would be discussing how the thin lines between extremism, terrorism and separatism in Africa are.
The event is to be chaired by Prof Danfulani who is former Director General of NIPSS, while the Director General National Orientation Agency is to deliver a keynote address and to be declared opened by the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Ibrahim Kpotum Idris and our Special Guests are Governor of Bauchi, Gombe state, Director General, NIMASA and Comptroller General of Nigeria Immigration.
Participants will be going round selected locations in Nigeria to interact with the citizenry as proof that it is possible to do on site fact finding visits in Nigeria to avoid the risk of interviewing impostors after the seminar.
You are all our official media partners, which is why we invited you to this briefing today to help us in this quest to enlighten citizens particularly those whose work shape human rights and governance issue. Our official international media partner is iNEWS, which would be arriving Nigeria in a few days time to carry out informed investigation on the efforts of the Nigerian State in defeating terrorism in the 21st century.
We therefore crave for your support in making this seminar a success in the hope that the awareness you will create around it would be the catalyst for the buy-in from relevant stakeholders.
Thank you.
Mrs Helen Adesola
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