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Case Study A: Oyo State

This is where democracy starts in Nigeria. This place hosted the first university in West Africa. Everything started here. But the situation is deteriorating and now we have a government of illiterates, we have a politics of hooliganism, of violence, of moneybags. These are the kinds of people Adedibu brought into all levels of government.
—Senior Advocate of Nigeria (name withheld), Ibadan¹⁵⁷

Nigeria’s southwestern state of Oyo calls itself Nigeria’s “pace setter,” reflecting a deeply held pride in the state’s reputation as a leader in the fields of commerce and education. Oyo’s capital city of Ibadan is one of the largest commercial centers in West Africa and the University of Ibadan is Nigeria’s oldest and one of its finest. But in recent years, Oyo has also pushed the frontiers of violence and corruption that characterize Nigeria’s nascent “democracy.”

The Godfather of Ibadan

Chief Lamidi Adedibu has been involved in Oyo politics since the 1950s. His many detractors allege that he got his start as a small-time organizer of political thugs for the Action Group party of Chief Obafemi Awolowo.¹⁵⁸ By the late 1980s, however, he had emerged as a powerful political force through a combination of populist politics, patronage, violence, and extortion.¹⁵⁹

Adedibu is an iconic figure in Nigerian politics, an example of the kind of power to which political godfathers aspire.¹⁶⁰ When Human Rights Watch visited Adedibu’s Ibadan compound in the run-up to the 2007 elections, he held court sprawled across a large chair underneath a tin roof adjacent to his car park, which was crowded with a long-line of would-be supplicants. Adedibu’s every word brought nods or cheers from those who crowded around to listen, and several people who walked across his field of vision immediately prostrated themselves as a gesture of deference when he glanced up in their general direction.

Adedibu flaunts his political power quite openly, telling Human Rights Watch that, “I sponsor them, all of the politicians [in the state.]”¹⁶¹ Oyo’s current governor, Christopher Alao-Akala, is a protégé of Adedibu’s and told Human Rights Watch that “Chief Adedibu has sponsored everybody. Everybody who is who and who in Oyo State politics has passed through that place [Adedibu’s compound in Ibadan].”¹⁶² Adeolu Adeleke, Speaker of the Oyo State House of Assembly until April 2007, eventually became an opponent of Adedibu’s but confirmed that he had initially obtained his sponsorship in order to get elected. “I did go to Baba and he did sponsor me,” he said. “I believed I could not do anything contrary to him. Some of my colleagues [in the House] also went to him.”¹⁶³

Adedibu’s power flows primarily from his tremendous ability to mobilize violence and money in support of the politicians he sponsors. He also distributes cash and food to supplicants on a daily basis from his Ibadan home, a brand of patronage frequently referred to as “amala politics,” after a traditional dish common to Nigeria’s southwest.¹⁶⁴

Many residents of Oyo prefer to use harsher terminology. As former PDP Senator Lekan Balogun put it: “He is notorious. He threatens people he wants to have vote for [his candidates] with machetes. His stock in trade is blackmail, violence and intimidation and everyone knows it.”¹⁶⁵

Adedibu’s War Against Ladoja

Rashidi Ladoja served as Governor of Oyo State from 2003 to 2007. Adedibu supported Ladoja as the PDP candidate in the 2003 elections Adedibu helped to rig, partly by providing the muscle needed to fix the polls. Ladoja confirmed this fact to Human Rights Watch but said that once he was in office, he tried immediately to break free of Adedibu’s influence.¹⁶⁶

Ladoja told Human Rights Watch that he fell out with Adedibu shortly after coming into office in 2003 because he refused to allow Adedibu access to the treasury—he alleges that Adedibu ordered him to turn over 25 percent of the government’s security vote—or roughly N15 million ($115,000) per month—directly to him.¹⁶⁷ Ladoja also refused to allow Adedibu to name the Commissioners who would serve in his cabinet.¹⁶⁸

In an interview with Human Rights Watch, Adedibu described Ladoja as an “ingrate.”¹⁶⁹ Current Governor Christopher Alao-Akala agreed. “Ladoja should have involved him in forming the government,” he said. “You cannot exclude this man from decision-making.”¹⁷⁰ Former state Governor Kolapo Ishola, who met with Human Rights Watch at Adedibu’s home, expressed a similar view: “The problem with Ladoja—he did not consult Baba on appointments, he did not ask whether he had candidates for appointments, for patronage, for contracts. Adedibu did not have a say, he was angry.”¹⁷¹

Violence Engulfs the Legislature

By August 2005 tensions between Ladoja and Adedibu had caused the State House of Assembly to split in two, with a majority of 18 out of 32 members publicly supporting Adedibu in every matter related to his struggle with Governor Ladoja for control of the state government. The legislature largely ceased to function as a single house.¹⁷²

At the end of 2005 the so-called “G-18” of pro-Adedibu lawmakers set about trying to impeach Governor Ladoja. Their first attempt failed and resulted in an armed melee on the floor of the State legislature. One pro-Adedibu lawmaker stabbed one of his rivals with a knife and several others were also wounded; some lawmakers reportedly drew firearms and fired into the air to ward off attackers from the opposing camp.¹⁷³ The police made no arrests.

Just over one week later, armed policemen escorted the G-18 lawmakers to the State House of Assembly for a second try at moving the impeachment motion.¹⁷⁴ An hours-long gun battle erupted between the police and armed thugs supporting Ladoja who sought to prevent the pro-Adedibu legislators from entering the House. At least one civil servant was wounded in the crossfire and the fighting caused panic to spread throughout Ibadan.¹⁷⁵

Eventually the G-18 legislators broke into the locked House of Assembly and voted, on their own, to constitute a panel of inquiry to investigate allegations of misconduct including corruption against Ladoja. Immediately following the vote a large group of anti-Ladoja thugs stormed Government House and ran rampant through the premises, looting and destroying the Governor’s office. Some of this was captured on film by the thugs themselves.¹⁷⁶ The police made no arrests in connection with the sponsorship of any of this violence. Three weeks later the G-18 voted unanimously to remove Ladoja from office, replacing him with Deputy Governor and Adedibu loyalist Christopher Alao-Akala.

The attempt to impeach Ladoja ended in failure. In December 2006 Nigeria’s Supreme Court reversed the move as illegal because his removal was not supported by the required two-thirds majority of the legislature. ¹⁷⁷

Rival Armies of Political Thugs

After Ladoja resumed office in late 2006, the political struggle between the governor and Adedibu was waged mainly in the streets through regular battles between proxy gangs. Many of those thugs were armed with machetes and locally manufactured small arms that were—according to interviews with government officials, police officers and civil society activists—provided or paid for by their sponsors.¹⁷⁸ The depredations of those groups exacted a heavy toll on ordinary civilians who were subjected to violent crimes and looting, while few of the thugs and none of their sponsors were ever held to account.

Both Ladoja and Adedibu turned to Oyo State’s chapter of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) as a primary source of political thugs. NURTW has several thousand members in Oyo alone and is meant to represent the collective bargaining interests of drivers of commercial passenger vehicles. There is considerable evidence that NURTW’s Oyo chapter has long been used as a tool of political violence by Adedibu and others. Some longtime members complain that the union has been largely captured by violent motor park “touts” who loiter about the motor parks harassing drivers and passengers alike.¹⁷⁹

Former Oyo State Senator Lekan Balogun told Human Rights Watch that “I would call for the complete proscription of NURTW. They do not have any purpose. They are available for negative activities including thuggery and they [politicians] draw their thugs from there.”¹⁸⁰ The senator was beaten and nearly killed by a group of NURTW thugs loyal to Adedibu while attempting to mediate the dispute between Ladoja and Adedibu in January 2007.¹⁸¹ Former Oyo State Governor Victor Olunloyo echoed these sentiments, adding, “It has always been that way, it was like that when I was governor.”¹⁸²

The Deputy Secretary of one NURTW branch in Ibadan acknowledged his members’ involvement in “politics,” explaining that, “We are supposed to be a separate body but the way they are playing politics in Nigeria, if you want to be anything you cannot rule out the godfather system. You must be somehow political. If one is elected they will want to thank us.¹⁸³

Adedibu and Ladoja each supported rival factions of NURTW under two different leaders. The pro-Adedibu faction was led by Lateef Akinsola, commonly known as “Tokyo.” In 2003, Ladoja’s Attorney General charged Tokyo with several counts of murder and kept him in detention without bail for more than two and a half years while trying to convict him.¹⁸⁴ During Tokyo’s detention Ladoja backed a rival named Wasilu Adegboyega, commonly known as “Tawa,” to usurp Tokyo’s role.

Tokyo was released from prison in February 2006 under Akala’s watch, just weeks after Ladoja’s temporary “impeachment.”¹⁸⁵ He immediately moved to reassert his leadership over NURTW in violent fashion. Tokyo’s supporters, along with other thugs loyal to Adedibu, took over the car parks by force after violent clashes with supporters of Tawa’s faction. Several people were injured and at least one killed.¹⁸⁶

Human Rights Watch interviewed one man who said he was attacked with machetes at the time of Tokyo’s resurgence because he had led NURTW members in a prayer at the ceremony that had seen Tawa invested as NURTW chairman two years earlier. “I saw four or five people and they just attacked me, all carrying cutlasses,” he said. “They really beat me, all of the women were shouting. There was all blood everywhere and I had to take my car and go to the hospital.”¹⁸⁷ He said that two people had died in the fighting at his motor park that day, and that he had not reported the incident to the police lest the pro-Tokyo union leadership bar him from working out of the motor parks altogether.¹⁸⁸ The police reportedly did not intervene or hold to account any of those responsible for that violence.¹⁸⁹

With Tokyo back in control of NURTW, Tawa and his supporters were exiled from most of the motor parks in Oyo. Some of them, including Tawa, took up residence inside the compound that includes the governor’s lodge for mutual protection. Governor Ladoja acknowledged this in an interview with Human Rights Watch.¹⁹⁰

By this point, Ladoja and Adedibu were jockeying for position ahead of the 2007 elections. Ladoja sought to regain the PDP nomination for governor to run for a second term while Adedibu, along with President Obasanjo in Abuja, supported Deputy Governor Christopher Alao-Akala in his bid to obtain the party’s ticket. The result was a series of bloody clashes between supporters of Adedibu and Ladoja. The Tokyo and Tawa factions of NURTW were again at the front lines of these clashes.

Pre-Election Escalation

In the months leading up to the 2007 elections, Ladoja and Adedibu’s factions fought each other regularly. On the weekend of February 4, 2007, the two factions at a PDP rally in neighboring Osun state when the party hierarchy formally awarded the ticket to Akala. At least four people were killed. ¹⁹¹ Adedibu and Ladoja both blamed one another for instigating the clash.

Human Rights Watch interviewed four NURTW members who had been shot and wounded by members of the pro-Ladoja wing of NURTW in February 2007. The victims each said that their rivals had descended on their vehicles not far from the motor park they worked out of, smashed the windows of their vehicles and then fired at them as they fled. All of the victims bore fresh gunshot wounds days after the incident and said that the police did not make any arrests in connection with the incident.¹⁹²

Violence and insecurity became the norm in Ibadan and other parts of Oyo in the run-up to the April polls. On several occasions thugs loyal to Adedibu rampaged through the streets of Ibadan, attacking motorists and looting shops along the road.¹⁹³ According to media and other sources, clashes between the two factions in the run-up to the elections claimed more than a dozen lives, with many more wounded.¹⁹⁴

On April 11, a few days before the gubernatorial poll, Akala’s campaign convoy passed by the campaign office of ANPP gubernatorial candidate Abiola Ajimobi on its way to a rally. Eyewitnesses described several cars pulling to a halt and PDP thugs descending and shooting at the ANPP office. They also destroyed two cars in the compound and a stall selling food outside the gate of the office.¹⁹⁵ An elderly woman selling food outside the gates told Human Rights Watch: “There were many people, so many buses, so many cars. They came with cutlasses, guns. They shout ‘We are the governor! We are Akala!’ Everybody ran immediately because of the guns.”¹⁹⁶

Oyo’s 2007 Elections: A Victory for Corruption and Impunity

Oyo’s 2007 elections saw the same open vote rigging and intimidation of voters that derailed the exercise across most of Nigeria. Observers and journalists reported attacks by thugs on polling stations who stole ballot boxes and several voters were reportedly shot or stabbed while trying to cast their ballots in Ogbomosho and Ibadan.¹⁹⁷ Especially in Ibadan, Adedibu’s proxy thugs from NURTW and elsewhere were implicated in much of this violence.

Human Rights Watch interviewed Labour Party, AC and ANPP activists in Iseyin who were beaten, robbed, or had their houses looted allegedly by PDP thugs on the two days of voting.¹⁹⁸ Human Rights Watch interviewed one opposition party agent in Iseyin who was beaten and stripped half-naked in the street by supporters of Akala when he tried to investigate reports of ballot box stuffing at a polling unit near his home.¹⁹⁹

One foreign election observer summarized her impressions of the polls in Oyo succinctly to Human Rights Watch: “The elections were stolen.”²⁰⁰ The end result was a comfortable victory for PDP candidate and Adedibu protégé Christopher Alao-Akala.²⁰¹

Akala came into office already facing allegations of corruption. Ladoja alleged that during Akala’s brief tenure as governor during the 2006 impeachment saga, he had indulged in corruption on a massive scale, funneling money into the hands of Adedibu, himself, and his supporters and derailing existing government programs.²⁰²

Adeolu Adeleke, Speaker of the State House of Assembly under Ladoja, told Human Rights Watch that during Akala’s previous 11-month tenure his supporters in the legislature siphoned off more than N45 million ($346,000) each month for their own personal use.²⁰³ Governor Ladoja described one scheme whereby Akala allegedly ordered each local government chairman to purchase an ambulance at a cost of N14 million ($107,000), even though the true cost of each ambulance was only N5 million. He suggested that “the attraction of the ambulances was simply the surplus N9 million,” which he alleged went into the pockets of Adedibu, Akala and the participating local government chairmen.²⁰⁴

In an interview with Human Rights Watch, Akala strenuously denied that any acts of corruption took place under his watch as governor.²⁰⁵

Prior to the elections a spokesman for Governor Ladoja claimed that corruption and mismanagement under Akala’s previous tenure had a disastrous effect on government programs meant to provide for education, potable water, and health care services. “We had made a budget of N50 billion,” he said. “Within one month [of coming to power] they increased it, and then they increased it [again] to N60 billion, with nothing to show for it. Water stopped flowing, projects were abandoned.”²⁰⁶

Akala’s New Administration

All signs indicate that Akala’s administration is likely to further entrench the culture of impunity that allowed him to come into office. One of Akala’s earliest acts as governor was to replace the state’s acting Chief Judge, who was investigating an array of corruption allegations that had been brought against Akala before the 2007 election. The judge’s replacement immediately halted the investigation.²⁰⁷

By the time Akala was sworn in as Governor, he and Adedibu had already left a trail of violence, fraud and corruption in their wake, and neither they nor anyone else has been held to account for any of it. Adedibu’s position appears to be secure as well. In an interview with Human Rights Watch, Akala described his relationship with his “godfather” (see box 4 below).

Federal Government Complicity

Police Failures and Partisanship

The Nigerian police have made no effort to investigate Adedibu’s involvement in orchestrating political violence, corruption or electoral fraud despite evidence implicating him in all three. Former Senator Lekan Balogun, who was attacked along with his security detail by Adedibu’s thugs at the State House of Assembly in January 2007, said of his attackers:

I knew them very well—I even gave them money sometimes [at Adedibu’s home], they are NURTW boys, Adedibu’s agents. I gave 11 or 12 names to the police and…not a single arrest has been made…The commissioner said he has been unable to locate them. I said I could tell him where one or two of them were found. How can you say we have laws in this country?²⁰⁹

Governor Ladoja, along with several journalists and civil society activists, alleged to Human Rights Watch that then-State Commissioner of Police Jonathan Johnson was “compromised” and an active supporter of Adedibu.²¹⁰ Ladoja also argued that Johnson’s partiality justified his own reliance on NURTW thugs led by Tawa to augment his security, as he doubted the police would intervene effectively to protect him from Adedibu’s own thugs.²¹¹

Human Rights Watch interviewed two policemen in Ibadan who complained that they were restrained by the police leadership from doing their job correctly. One of them stated that, “We have been put in a position to protect life and property. It’s not that we don’t know what to do, but if you try to do your job, you are playing with your life. When PDP people are arrested [during the election campaigns] we are told to let them go.”²¹² He also claimed that he had been ordered by his direct superiors not to intervene to stop violence on Election Day. Another police source confirmed the same. ²¹³

During Nigeria’s chaotic voter registration period, Adedibu was discovered to have induced INEC staff to divert six voter registration machines to his home for the apparent purpose of creating lists of nonexistent voters.²¹⁴ Nigeria’s electoral law provides for a sentence of up to one year of imprisonment for such malfeasance, but Adedibu was not held to account in any way.²¹⁵ INEC officials publicly confirmed the incident and blamed the police for failing to investigate the crime.²¹⁶ Jonathan Johnson, the Commissioner of Police in Oyo state at the time, responded to those complaints by asking rhetorically, “If you hear a rumor and then you call the man and he says he doesn’t know anything about it, what more can you do about it?”²¹⁷

A Lack of Political Will

Echoing the complaints of many other activists and citizens of Oyo State, one dissident politician told Human Rights Watch that, “Adedibu is there not because the PDP does not know that he is a criminal but because they need him to win elections.”²¹⁸ President Obasanjo himself dismissed the idea that Adedibu should be held to account or even made to change his behavior. “Baba has become a dried fish, he cannot be bent anymore,” Obasanjo said on one occasion. “So let us continue to manage him.”²¹⁹ Then-PDP chairman Ahmadu Ali went further, calling Adedibu the “commander” of the PDP’s “garrison” in Oyo state in early 2006 and suggesting that Ladoja should not have accepted the job of Governor if he was not willing to take orders from Adedibu.²²⁰

The result of this complacent attitude on the part of the federal government is that Adedibu has enjoyed more than just impunity; the Obasanjo government treated him as though his capacity to mobilize violence and corruption made him a legitimate part of the political process in Oyo. Not only has he not been investigated by the police, but he is assigned a permanent security detail of Mobile Police (MOPOL) officers who are stationed at his home and accompany him wherever he goes. It remains to be seen whether any of this will change under the Yar’Adua government.

Aftermath

Some residents of Oyo State expressed the hope that once the political battles surrounding the election were over, they could at least hope for peace to take root in Oyo. As one activist put it before the elections, “The whole problem is that he [Adedibu] is the godfather and his authority was toppled and he will not stand for it. Once he has won it will become quiet.”²²¹

Unfortunately this has not come to pass and violence has continued since the elections came to a close. Much of that violence has seen Ladoja’s former supporters harassed and attacked. Tawa, leader of the pro-Ladoja faction of NURTW, was reportedly abducted, attacked with machetes and badly wounded by Tokyo’s supporters just days before Ladoja handed over to Akala as governor.²²² A pro-Tawa NURTW leader in Ogbomoso was murdered on June 22.²²³ And in early July 2007 Ladoja’s own house was attacked by armed thugs alleged in the employ of Adedibu and Governor Akala.²²⁴ The police made no arrests.

There are also signs that Oyo’s culture of political violence has become so entrenched that it is continuing to worsen in relation to issues not connected with the election at all. On June 27, 2007, a group of NURTW thugs armed with clubs and machetes allegedly attacked a group of state government employees who were staging a peaceful protest against the Akala administration’s recent decision to reduce their salaries. Twenty protesters suffered machete and club wounds in the attack and at least three of them were hospitalized. The workers accused the state government of masterminding the attack and demanded an investigation. Commissioner of Police Jonathan Johnson responded by publicly accusing the civil servants of attacking the NURTW men.²²⁵ As of the time of writing no one has been held to account for the attack.