Nigeria: Freedom in the World 2021 Country Report | Freedom House https://freedomhouse.org/country/nigeria/freedom-world/2021
The military has been repeatedly criticized by local and international human rights groups for extrajudicial killings, torture, and other abuses, including during counterinsurgency efforts in the northeast and operations against separatist movements in the southeast. Police forces have been accused of similar behavior; in June 2020, Amnesty International reported that SARS was responsible for at least 82 cases of torture, ill-treatment, or extrajudicial killings between 2017 and May 2020.
Sharia courts that operate in Nigeria are known to impose the death penalty. In August 2020, a Sharia court in Kano State handed Yahaya Sharif-Aminu a death sentence over recorded comments that were considered blasphemous. Sharif-Aminu appealed the verdict in September, and a state appeals court was expected to hear the case in November.
Boko Haram continued to attack government forces and civilians in 2020. In March, Boko Haram killed at least 50 soldiers in an ambush in Yobe State. In November, over 70 people in Borno State, most of them farmers, were killed by Boko Haram fighters in an incident the United Nations called “the most violent direct attack against innocent civilians in Nigeria this year.” The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) reported that Boko Haram was responsible for 2,720 deaths in Borno State alone in 2020, compared to 1,136 in 2019.
ISWAP also attacked officials and civilians in 2020. Borno state governor Babagana Zulum was targeted by the group four times during the year, surviving a July attack on his convoy, two attacks in September, and a late-November attack. ISWAP was also blamed for an attack in Borno State that killed as many as 81 people in June, along with twin attacks that killed dozens more several days later.
A rolling conflict between farmers and the Fulani, a seminomadic Muslim ethnic group, continued to destabilize northern Nigeria in 2020. The Fulani have abandoned degraded grasslands in the north, coming into increased conflict with farmers as they travel south to find new grazing lands. Banditry in the northwestern states of Kaduna, Katsina, and Zamfara have also resulted in fatalities; at least 57 people died in a bandit attack on six villages in Katsina in June 2020. In May, the International Crisis Group reported that over 200,000 people have been displaced in the northwest since 2011, with some fleeing to Niger.
Various vigilante groups are active in Nigeria, with the National Assembly attempting to give official recognition to the Vigilante Group of Nigeria (VGN) in 2017. Buhari refused to sign legislation recognizing the group in 2018, though legislators attempted to secure recognition again in 2019. In September 2020, the VGN called on the federal government to incorporate it in a new community- policing initiative, but it still lacked official recognition at year’s end.
Kidnapping has become an acute concern in Nigeria. While Boko Haram is known to employ this tactic, the US Consulate General in Lagos also noted its increasing use by criminals demanding ransom, as well as by factions in intercommunal
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conflicts. In May 2020, a Nigerian consulting firm reported that as much as $18 million was paid in ransom since 2011.
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