Complaint against Osai Ojigho, head, Amnesty International (Nigeria office).

Re: Jamal
Ahmad Khashoggi: AI Nigeria action
Yahoo/Inbox

Peter Nkanga <peternkanga@gmail.com>

To:Damian Ugwu

Mon, Dec 31, 2018 at 2:51 PM

On 30 December 2018 at past 7pm I received a phone call that has compelled me to write
this mail. This is because my conscience is not at peace. I can’t cross over to 2019 with
this burden in my heart.

The phone call was from the wife of Yomi John Olomofe, the publisher of now-defunct
Badagry Prime magazine who was brutally assaulted in the premises of the Nigeria
Customs at Seme Border on 25 June 2015. She said Mr Olomofe is dying on a sick bed in
Ogun State. That was the audio I sent to you via Whats App.

Despite impeachable evidence I shared with key aides to both President Buhari and VP
Osinbajo, Mr Olomofe remains a victim of injustice because very highly placed past and
serving public servants in the hierarchy of government and security agencies are
determined to deny Mr Olomofe justice.

The link below is to my investigation revealing the political and criminal persecution of
Mr Olomofe who has been fighting for justice against an arms trafficking syndicate
operating across West Africa. This syndicate, whose members I identified by name, face,
and location, is reported to have illegally smuggled arms and ammunition into the
country, which were subsequently delivered to Boko Haram.
https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2016/07/29/justice-for-olomofe-one-year-on-whe
n-is-the-change/

In May 2018, I fully briefed Osai Ojigho, the head of the Nigeria office of Amnesty
International, in the presence of concerned civil society colleagues, about Mr Olomofe’s
case and the grave implications it bears on national security in Nigeria and West Africa.
Mr Olomofe’s case threatens to expose persons involved in smuggling arms and
ammunition used by terrorists and criminals in Nigeria and along the ECOWAS region.

From the Impact Strategy plan I discussed with Ms Ojigho, she clearly understood that
Mr Olomofe’s case is a game-changer in the fight against crime and corruption. From the
merits and urgency of his case Ms Ojigho said Amnesty would provide financial support
to relocate Mr Olomofe where he would receive treatment and recover from a stroke
which his doctors suggest arose from the brutal attack he survived in June 2015.

Esther Ikubaje, a staff of Amnesty Nigeria, has been handling Mr Olomofe’s case for the
past 6 months. She is in possession of all requirements obtained from Mr Olomofe’s
family including medical reports and other documentation that he is medically fit to
travel. Ms Ikubaje continually re-iterated during these months that vetting hurdles had
been cleared because many past and present Amnesty staff knew of Mr Olomofe’s case
since 2015.

Late October 2018, Ms Ikubaje told me that she had since submitted a relocation support
application for Mr Olomofe and that it was left for Ms Ojigho to expedite action.

By 21 November 2018, after repeated appeals from Mr Olomofe and his family, Ms
Ikubaje stopped responding to my communications. I suspect out of guilt and not having
any rational feedback to give as the previous one-too-many excuse that Ms Ojigho was
yet to expedite action on Mr Olomofe’s case was no more tenable after several months.
Ms Ikubaje’s change in disposition occurred immediately after the Coalition of Nigerian
Media and Civil Society Groups organised the protest on 26 October 2018 at the Saudi
Arabia Embassy in Abuja over the bestial murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. 

On the same day of October 26, Ms Ojigho for reasons she has not disclosed instructed
her staff to not join the rest of the Coalition in the march procession to the main entrance
of the Saudi Embassy which she agreed would begin by 2:30pm. I was shocked and cold
with shivers while at the Coalition protest when the Saudi Embassy security said that
Amnesty Nigeria staff led by Ms Ojigho had earlier the same day at 11am gone to the
embassy’s pedestrian (and rarely used) side gate along the highway where there are no
people passing or moving around to witness the protest. There, she organised a photo
shoot beside the Saudi Embassy sign post. The media then reported that “Amnesty
International supporters and volunteers from all parts of Nigeria on Friday staged a
demonstration to the Embassy of Saudi Arabia”.

https://dailynigerian.com/just-in-amnesty-volunteers-protest-at-saudi-embassy-in-abuja-s
eek-justice-for-khashoggi/

I am still confused because it was Ms Ojigho herself who gave me the go-ahead to
develop a strategy and coordinate the protest which I did under one week at great
discomfort and personal expense. See below the thread of mails between myself, Osai,
Isa Sanusi (media officer), and Esther Ilukoja (campaign officer) on plans we all
agreed towards the Khashoggi protest.

On 28 October 2018 I wrote a personal mail to Ms Ojigho asking to understand

what happened that Amnesty Nigeria bailed on the Coalition. Till today, 31
December 2018, Ms Ojigho has not responded. It is over 2 months and Amnesty
Nigeria is also yet to refund the money I paid for the posters which I made at their
request. Ms Ojigho obtained these posters from me through Mr Sanusi and used them
during Amnesty Nigeria’s clandestine protest on Friday 26 October 2018 by 11am, which
no one in the Coalition knew about.
I want to say Khashoggi and Olomofe are not the only cases where I have
approached Ms Ojigho to seek Amnesty Nigeria’s intervention on grave human
rights abuse cases with high Impact potential, and she would agree, then bail at
critical stages of execution.

This also happened in the case of journalist Jones Abiri which I brought to the attention
of Amnesty Nigeria’s office in 2017. Following my investigation countering the Nigerian
government’s claims and continued refusal to release him from SSS captivity, I briefed
Ms Ojigho in July 2018 while in Burkina Faso that I was delaying my return to Nigeria to
instead travel to Senegal where I met with staff from Amnesty West Africa office to
strategise getting international media to focus on Mr Abiri’s case. This was part of my
strategy since countless Nigerian media reports had not yielded desired impact.

Both myself and staff of Amnesty’s West Africa office reached out to Ms Ojigho to sign
off on the strategy which would have been a collaboration between Amnesty’s West
Africa and Nigeria offices. Osai did not respond to communications for the 11 days I was
in Dakar and that’s how that advocacy strategy died. Ms Ojigho would later say when we
met – after my return to Nigeria and the solidarity of the Coalition of Nigerian Media and
Civil Society Groups led to Mr Abiri’s release – that she had taken ill when I was in
Dakar. That was why she nor anyone from the Nigeria office could not communicate with
me for 11 days.

Sadly, since the Khashoggi incident two months back, I have discovered that a number of
staff working at Amnesty Nigeria are unhappy. If you can independently find out, please
sincerely ask what is going on. Their morale is critically low and it has to do with their
present work environment. If you find out there is something (or even nothing)
fundamentally wrong, then please speak out too. I am speaking out because we know that
it is difficult for staff to openly blow the whistle on their superiors, even among civil
society groups.

Aside internal petitions from staff, I am also privy to information about external written
complaints from other civil society actors about Ms Ojigho’s style of leadership which I
am sad to agree is negatively denting the image and brand of Amnesty International as a
global rights advocacy organisation whose success is more assured by building symbiotic
relationships with local partners in respective countries.

In the past two months I have thought long and hard, fought my conscience on what to
do, consulted with several colleagues in Nigeria and abroad, and came to the conclusion
that I need to do the right thing, primarily for my own peace of mind.

This is a matter of life and death. I need to voice my concerns that if it is left to Ms
Ojigho, then Mr Olomofe might not get the help that I have been told Amnesty
International can provide, and which the team at Amnesty Nigeria office
including Ms Ojigho knows he desperately needs.

Personally, I have enjoyed 10 solid years of respectful and professional working relations
with Amnesty International staff in Nigeria, West Africa, and around the world who I call
friends and colleagues up til today. I have even launched Amnesty International's 2014
Torture report in Nigeria, prior to the opening of Amnesty Nigeria's office in 2015.

Amnesty International has been part of my family for a decade. As a journalist

and human rights advocate I have dedicated my life to the ideals of Amnesty
International which in a nutshell are to defend the afflicted and resist the oppressor.

I have only sent this mail to few members in the Coalition but I am constrained
to go public, in the coming days, even though some friends fear I might be victimised by
colleagues in the media and civil society for blowing the whistle on matters arising at
Amnesty Nigeria.

My greater concern though is that I don’t want detractors, political opportunists and
human rights oppressors to use these issues I am raising as ammunition to target
Amnesty Nigeria with the aim of discrediting the exceptional work Amnesty International
is doing which I subscribe to wholly.

But like I said, I am constrained to do what is right. This life is all that we have. Do we
live for the future, the present, or the past? Mr Olomofe is a man shattered and at wit’s
end. His family is distraught. In the past months, I have lacked the words to explain to
them why and how they might never receive the help they are literally depending upon.

And then I received the call from Mrs Olomofe on 30 December 2018 at past 7pm telling
me that her husband is dying on a sick bed in Ogun State. My conscience would not be at
peace if Mr Olomofe dies because of petty differences I am yet to understand why.

Nigeria is facing extreme human rights violations. We all need to Stand United if we

desire to resist the evil in the land. All of us are old and getting older. If we don’t fight
now, injustice will subsist as the norm and resistance from our children and future
generations then might be futile.

The Nigerian human rights community needs an Amnesty Nigeria that can rally this
community into affirmative action for social change. This is the potential Amnesty
International has. But this can only happen with some serious housecleaning to the
Amnesty Nigeria office.

This is imperative as we enter 2019 if Amnesty International is to build the needed trust

among Nigeria media, Nigeria civil society groups, but most importantly the Nigerian
public. 

Peter Nkanga.