Amid Mounting Crisis, Nigeria Faces Grim Truths Under Tinubu's Leadership

For three long years, 103 corpses lay unclaimed in a Nigerian morgue. Heaven only knows what state the remains of the poor souls were in by the time the authorities decided they ought to be buried.

Their grieving families can only hope that they were afforded more respect in death than they were in life. They died in disputed circumstances during a particularly violent period on the lawless streets of Lagos in an episode that says much about the rapidly deteriorating state of their country.

Extra-judicial killings are nothing new in President Bola Ahmed Tinibu's Nigeria, a nation in the grip of a historic crisis. Almost every day brings some fresh horror, whether it is the senseless beating of innocent students during protests over tuition fees, the casual gunning down of citizens who refuse to pay bribes, or the murder of those who simply find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time in a land that seems to be riddled with trigger happy cops.

A population suffering from Tinubu's disastrous policies has grown wearily used to such outrages. However, what happened in a place called Lekki Tollgate on 20th October 2020 was on a different scale. In the bitterest of ironies, a public protest against police brutality triggered an extra unique display of violent thuggery, leaving more than 100 demonstrators dead in the gutter.

Luckily for Tinibu, the world wasn't watching. At that time, the pandemic was raging. Most countries were in the grip of lockdowns. Caught up in the mass panic over soaring infection rates, few outside Nigeria noticed this human rights shame.

Rightfully, though, it has not gone away, not least because it took the authorities so long to figure out what to do with all the bodies. A year or so ago, it emerged that they were secretly plotting to dump the victims in a mass grave. An excruciating leaked document revealed a fat government payment to funeral directors to make the necessary arrangements.

Naturally, Tinibu's cronies deny that police killed the 103 corpses they wanted to move on from the morgue. According to the official version of events, the victims all perished in "community clashes" after the protest.

In a rambling statement, the Permanent Secretary at the Lagos state Ministry of Health explained that the authorities needed to "decongest the morgues," claiming that in the three years since the protest, not a single grieving relative had come forward to claim the bodies.

If true, this would seem to say more about the utter dysfunctionality of Tinubu's Nigeria and the entirely rational fear among civilians of any interaction with the police than it does about the innocence of the cops.

Whatever the truth, the shocking loss of civilian lives in incidents involving the police has continued apace under Tinubu – along with all manner of other human rights outrages. Preoccupied by the horrors in Israel and Gaza, the UK government appears to be looking the other way. Where is the outrage from Foreign Secretary David Lammy at the appalling descent of a Commonwealth ally? A decade ago, the world briefly woke up to the terror that stalks northern Nigeria thanks to Islamic extremists Boko Haram. The mass kidnap of 276 school girls from Chibok could have marked a turning point.

For all the global handwringing, it did not. (While more than 100 of the victims survived were rescued or broke free, the fate of 82 remains unknown.) Instead, under Tinibu, Nigeria gets ever more desperate, with mounting fears of a violent revolution or military coup.

Of course, it does not help that journalists struggle to expose what is happening for fear of being "disappeared" - or worse. Under this President, crackdowns on members of the Opposition and other voices of dissent have steadily increased, with a particular focus on reporters telling inconvenient truths. According to the latest data, Nigeria ranks 123 out of 180 countries for Press Freedom, a woeful record.

Why should the UK care? There is a moral, economic, and strategic imperative.

As a former British protectorate, Nigeria retains historic solid ties with London. There is no escaping the legacy of a colonial-era which imposed artificial borders with little to no regard for the diverse ethnic and religious communities within. Since independence, Nigeria has had more than 60 years to sort itself out. The current regime cannot pin all its woes on the past.

However, if the British wash their hands, others will step in – as they already are. Given the richness of Nigeria's natural resources – vast reserves of oil, gas, and minerals – it is no wonder that Russia and China are already on the scene.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office needs to engage Downing Street—and sharply. The UK has a vital role in steering this magnificent but deeply troubled country back to stability and prosperity. That requires new leadership that truly has the interests of the Nigerian people at heart.

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Ms Balogun is a human rights activist and journalist based in Nigeria, focusing on issues of interest across Africa.