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The Plateau Unity and Reconciliation Bill
Addressed to Chief Adolphus Wabara,
President of the Senate, signed by President Olusegun Obasanjo and dated October
7, 2004.
YOU will recall that
on the 18th day of May 2004, I was constrained as a last resort to impose a
State of Emergency in Plateau State through the instrumentality of the
constitutional provision relating thereto. The action was necessary at the
relevant time in order to halt the spate of violence, and destruction of lives
and property; to restore law and order; and to restore confidence to the people
in the ability of government to provide adequate security.
In furtherance of the requisite
constitutional provisions, an Administrator was appointed for the State in the
person of Major-General M.C. Alli (Rtd) to administer the affairs of the State
for six months in the first instance. He was accordingly charged with the
responsibility to engage the cooperation of all peace-loving people (within and
outside the State) to restore peace, promote democratic values and enshrine the
values of transparency, accountability, social justice, love, good
neighbourliness and good governance.
Upon his assumption of office, the
Administrator designed a comprehensive Peace Programme which has so far recorded
appreciable progress on the path to the restoration of peace in Plateau State.
The strategy outlined in the programme included an immediate cease-fire
throughout the State and the cessation of violent hostilities; the restoration
of calm and promotion of dialogue between interest groups and stakeholders as a
means of conflict resolution, resettlement of internally displaced persons; and
the restoration; of the integrity and respect for the rule of law.
Plateau Peace Conference
As a necessary and important part of the
peace process, the Administrator convened the Plateau Peace Conference, 2004,
comprising representatives from all ethnic groups including other interest
groups and stakeholders with the following objectives:
i. to provide the opportunity for every
ethnic group to bring to light real and perceived grievances and disagreements;
ii. to avail the opportunity to such
groups and other stakeholders to contribute directly to the peace process;
iii. to create a forum for the people of
Plateau State where contending issues would be openly presented and debated;
iv. to attempt to find lasting solutions
to the lingering problems that had precipitated crisis in the State, and
v. to establish, by consensus, the
yardstick for peaceful co-existence between the various ethnic and religious
groups in the State to serve as a reference point for future generations and the
nation at large.
The Conference was declared open by me on
the 19th day of August 2004 and commenced its deliberations. It concluded its
assignment within the given timeframe and was formally adjourned on the 21st day
of September 2004 by the Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. The Conference
was tremendously successful and its Report has been forwarded to the
Administrator.
Reconciliation Commission (and the Amnesty
Committee)
To complement the gains of the Peace
Conference, the next stage of the peace process is the establishment of a
Reconciliation Commission for the State. The aim of this Commission is to
consolidate and promote unity and reconciliation among the citizens of Plateau
State, and reconciliation between victims and perpetrators of crimes in the
course of past conflicts.
It is no gainsaying that peace and
reconciliation do not constitute an event but rather the components of a
process. I do believe that reconciliation, based on falsehood and on not facing
up to reality, is not true reconciliation and will not last. It is only on the
basis of truth that true reconciliation can take place.
The objectives of the Plateau
Reconciliation Commission, therefore, will be as follows:
i. to establish as complete a picture as
possible of the causes, nature and extent of the gross violations of human
rights which were committed during the period from June 2000 to May 2004,
including the antecedents, circumstances, factors and context of such violations
as well as the perspectives of the victims and the motives and perspectives of
the persons responsible for the commission of the violations, by conducting
investigations and holding hearings;
ii. to facilitate the recommendation of
granting of amnesty, reprieve or forgiveness to persons who make full disclosure
of all the relevant facts relating to acts committed in the course of the
conflicts;
iii. to establish and make known the fate
or whereabouts of victims and to restore the human and civil dignity of such
victims by granting them an opportunity to relate their own accounts of the
violations of which they are victims;
iv. to inquire into the question whether
such violations were the product of deliberate state policy or the policy of any
organs, institutions, individuals or whether they arose from abuse by the state
officials of their office or whether they were the acts of any political
organisation or other groups or individuals;
(v) to recommend measures which may be
taken to redress past injustices and to prevent or forestall future violations
or abuses of human rights.
Justice, and punishment serve different
objectives: they can be restorative, rehabilitative, and retributive or act as a
deterrent. It is my view that the prologned nature of the conflicts in Plateau
State and the extensive number of alleged perpetrators of violations in the
course of those conflicts makes the combination of truth, forgiveness, reprieve,
amnesty and reconciliation a more desirable option, in the first instance, to
retributive criminal justice.
The work of the Commission is intended,
therefore, to also resolve the attendant challenges arising from:
(a) the difficulty of successfully
prosecuting offenders against whom there may be insufficient evidence
(b) the lengthy delays and high cost of
litigation, and
(c) the need to promote reconciliation and
unity through the telling of the truth about human rights abuses.
It is in the light of the foregoing that I
hereby forward to you a Bill To Make Provision For The Plateau State Unity and
Reconciliation Law, 2004 for further deliberation and subsequent passage into
law in accordance with Section 11(4) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic
of Nigeria, 1999.
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