Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has sent an urgent appeal to three UN Special Rapporteurs urging them to “put meaningful pressure on the leadership of the National Assembly in Nigeria particularly the Speaker of the House of Representatives Mr Yakubu Dogara to immediately withdraw the repressive bill to establish a commission that would monitor, supervise, de-register, and pre-approve all activities by civil society, labour, community based organizations, and the media, in the country.”

Speaker Dogara

The urgent appeal dated 28 July 2017 was sent to Ms Annalisa Ciampi, Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association; Mr Michel Forst, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders; and Mr.  David Kaye,  Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression.

SERAP also urged the Special Rapporteurs to “prevail on the Acting President Professor Yemi Osinbajo to decline to sign the bill into law; and on the House of Representatives and the Senate to exercise their legislative powers for good governance, and ensure a safe and enabling environment for civil society organizations both in practice and rhetoric, in line with the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria (as amended) and the government’s international human rights obligations and commitments.”

The organization said, “The sole objective of the House of Representatives is to weaken and delegitimize the work of independent and credible civil society.

If adopted, the bill which is copied from repressive countries like Somalia, Ethiopia and Uganda, would have a chilling effect not only on expressions of peaceful dissent by the citizens but also on the legitimate work of NGOs and individual human rights defenders and activists scrutinizing corruption in the National Assembly and exposing human rights violations by the government.”