Refugee Watch-30-The Dynamics of Refugee Protection

Nigeria has always had humanitarian concerns, dating from the civil war (1967-70) to the present. It allowed international organisations to enter and work in the country (during the war) and has also allowed them in, during health and other emergencies.

The refugee protection and humanitarian assistance system in Nigeria has two dimensions-the governmental structure for refugee protection and humanitarian assistance and that of the international organisations working for refugee protection and humanitarian assistance. The UNHCR, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Nigerian Red Cross are at the apex of international organisations/ non-governmental intervention, while the National Commission for Refugees (NCFR) and the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) is at the apex of ‘coordination’ on behalf of Government. Unfortunately, today all the key implementers/actors of refugee protection are not effective coordinators or effective players in ensuring refugee protection and humanitarian assistance.

Refugee settlement practices in Nigeria have changed substantially over the last one-decade. The increasing use of refugee camps as places to confine refugees, rather than help them become self-supporting has led to an increased burden being placed on the international community. Many of these settlements have become little more than basic feeding centers for refugees. In many cases, these organized settlements provide officials with an easily identifiable target population for repatriation exercises.

The refugee assistance practices in Nigeria raise several questions such as the voluntariness of repatriation, the reflection of refugee assistance in the national/international organisation’s budget and extent of governmental/international organisation’ support. Besides, in this paper, an attempt will be made to attempt to map new territory, bring together diverse perspectives, challenge conventional wisdom, and begin to cumulate research to address these questions and contradictions. This paper aims not to only to introduce a new implementable theory of refugee protection in Nigeria, but also to identify generalizable patterns from diverse developments in a comparative manner by reflecting on general global trends of refugee protection and assistance and how these are in common with the current and emerging global practices. Some of the situations may well not be peculiar to Nigeria but may have a global consonance.

This paper, which is segregated into three aspects as the title suggests, will attempt to seek answers to these questions-

• “Is repatriation in Nigeria (and in other parts of the world,) as the UN and OAU Conventions would dictate, a free choice? Or is repatriation increasingly being impelled or forced upon refugees? The international law regarding refugees provides a standard against which nations that deal with refugees can be compared. From the basic theoretical framework of African refugees, the focus turns to the specific question of how and why refugees in Nigeria decide to return home. Is this also the case in other parts of the world?
• Why is there declining if not negligible support to the refugee issue in Africa/Nigeria (a comparative analysis) by all the implementing agencies-governmental and international. What role does UNHCR play in this process especially in this age of “donor fatigue”?
  
  
• Is the refugee assistance and protection in Nigeria turning into a façade and a myth? Is this part of the state centric theory of international relations?

Against this background, the present paper challenges the present mechanisms for refugee and protection in general in all parts of the world, in Africa, particularly in Nigeria.

Infact, the interest in the evaluation of humanitarian activities has never been higher and its time that international humanitarian organisations should be asked some fundamental questions-are the victims being reached? Does assistance and protection make a difference? Is learning occurring? Is performance improving? What are the impacts? How effective is such assistance? How do these organisations know that their aid ‘got through’ and that their actions were beneficial? How do they learn from their experiences so that they can improve their responses to the next post-conflict picking up the rubbles or to the next mass movement of refugees?

This paper which ‘opens up’ a process that has for too long remained hidden, is an effort to take a preliminary step in rethinking the above issues and to seek comparisons with other regions in the world especially in Africa so as to understand as to whether this is a common trend or a specific one to Nigeria and also to understand the impact it is bound to have to refugee assistance and protection in Nigeria/Africa in the coming decade. By no means comprehensive, this paper posits the urgent centrality of mass migration, and its articulation with gender, ethnic violence, and the production of refugees, and the erosion of humanitarian dimensions and concerns of the refugee issue and the emphasis on the political dimensions of the refugee issue both as a subject of investigation and a technology for rethinking the production of particular areas, regions, and transnational cultural public spheres, as communities. Towards this end, this paper will explore some of the thematics whose linkages to suggest directions, spaces and sites of investigation.

The idea of this paper emerged during the present author’s own researches, encountering ground realities and concerns on the refugee issues in Nigeria/Africa whilst trying to address the challenge of concern for the displaced populace in Nigeria/Africa at the ground level.

This paper is based mostly on primary sources/ground realities and fieldwork/empirical evidence as well as secondary sources. The data collection for this paper has been a long and tedious process with often non-committal or half – hearted responses from the inter/national humanitarian assistance agencies. To dissect and share the experiences by the author of this paper has required the author of this paper to reflect carefully and critically on the roles of the various stakeholders. In all, it has been a demanding process involving a measure of courage and self-discovery.

The hardships of Refugees in Nigeria have remained almost invisible to the rest of the world. Perhaps, because it has not seemed to be as politically glamorous especially for the western world as the Sudanese or the Somalian or the Rwandese refugee crisis.

It is an accepted fact as in other parts of the world, not all the refugees in Nigeria will be able to return to their homeland for a long time maybe even never. Their pride in their independence and ability to shelter and provide for their family is gone. The Oru Refugee Camp in Ogun State in Nigeria to help the refugees may well be temporary as are all refugee camps in different parts of the world. While the Federal Government in Nigeria led by General Olusegun Obasanjo is the first government in Nigeria’s history to evolve a specific policy to work for the protection of the interest of refugees in Nigeria by setting up the National Commission for Refugees, but then implementation of well-defined policies for refugee protection is an area which warrants immediate attention of the policy makers both from the African region as well as from international organisations. Moreso, as the challenge to help all the refugees get back on their feet is growing more difficult each day.

With this background, we shall attempt an understanding regarding the relationship between state, nation and territory in Africa and the African Refugee Theory in order to have a better understanding of the erosion of refugee assistance in Nigeria.

In order to understand the shifting attitudes and changing policies regarding (forced) migrants in Nigeria, we need to examine the triangular relationship between state, nation and territory in Africa. This relationship is clearly not simply given or fixed but open to negotiation and change. Within classical modernist perceptions, the nation is a clearly bounded community living in a demarcated territory and represented by a state, which reconciles the rights of the individual with the community of which he is a member. The sovereignty of the state is limited to the physical borders of the territory inhabited by the nation. In reality this ‘ideal-type’ obviously does not exist. However, it remains a model, which continues to inspire policy. As a reminder, it is useful to note that the now ‘common’ concept of the refugee is in fact a modern construct. Mobility and migration have always been normal patterns of life. Doubt, an analysis of these issues is pertinent. However, an alternative and more critical perspective, one that allows for various questions to be raised (beyond humanitarian issues) will hopefully be more instructive concerning the changing place of the (forced) migrant in Tanzanian society.

The twentieth century became the century of the refugees, not because it was extraordinary in forcing people to flee, but because of the division of the globe into nation-states in which states where assigned the role of protectors of rights, but also that of exclusive protectors of their own citizens, including the role of gatekeeper to determine who could become new citizens.

Lets look at the global realities as these are having a profound impact on the refugee protection and humanitarian assistance system in Nigeria.

The turn of the Millennium marked the fiftieth anniversary of the creation of the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the adoption of the UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. The Convention sets out the basic principles on which international refugee protection is built: non-refoulement, which emphasizes that the refugees should not be returned to any place where they could face persecution; and impartiality, whereby all refugees have come under increasing threat.

In a world, which has grown increasingly hostile to asylum and refugees, the very relevance of the Convention needs to be questioned. Besides, the refugee protection regime is being confronted by other developments with the potential to constrain refugee protection. These include states’ greater emphasis on the economic costs of offering asylum, concerns about the ‘security’ in the context of the global war of terror, fears regarding complex ‘mixed migration’ movements and more restrictive asylum policies.

States that once had generous refugee policies now see the costs of asylum as outweighing its benefits. Admittedly, it was easier to welcome refugees who were culturally similar, fulfilled labour needs, arrived in manageable numbers and reinforced ideological or strategic objectives. However, with the end of the cold war, many states saw refugees as a burden than an asset.

As concerns about the costs of asylum, state security and “uncontrolled migration” have led to a reshaping of asylum policies in many countries, two parallel trends have emerged. Both have had a negative impact on the access to asylum and the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers. The first is an overtly restrictive application of the Convention and its 1967 Protocol, which has led to an increase in detention and exclusion, besides lack of due process. The second is a proliferation of alternative protection mechanisms that guarantee fewer rights than those contained in the Convention. In some states there has been a gradual movement away from a rights –based approach towards more discretionary forms of refugee protection. Such mechanisms have included the notions of ‘safe country of origin’, ‘internal flight alternative’, ’effective protection elsewhere ‘ and ‘safe third country’ which are the reality of Refugeeism today in many countries. Needless to say these trends are bound to have an impact on refugeeism in the African Continent.

 The complex interplay of socio-economic factors, which can lead to refugee migrations, does not affect each refugee in the same manner. The varieties of different refugee migrations are as complex as the situations, which can create them. People have different perceptions of exactly what they consider is a threat to them. In some situations the mere rumour of instability can be enough to impel people to move. In other situations, people do not flee until they have been overtaken by violent conflict. Because in the African context, the line between political and economic repression has become blurred, many refugees could (and are) classified as economic migrants. In other cases, ecological change can be the cause of mass migrations. This latter variation of migration is usually ignored by contemporary definitions.

Another new phenomenon of century twenty-one is the trend of internally displaced becoming refugees. Nigeria has received some of these internally displaced persons turned refugees. Probably this merits a new conceptualisation and definition in Africa.

According to UNHCR’s year-end statistics for 2004, released ahead of World Refugee Day 2005,Africa today has a refugee population of over 7 million, in addition to some 15-18 million internally displaced.

Civil strife and armed conflicts have taken a heavy toll on African countries during the last few decades Aside from massive loss of lives, the region has witnessed the destruction of its physical, economic and social infrastructures, the collapse of civil societies, the breakdown of family units and the displacement of its people in unprecedented numbers.

In some places, hunger alone has caused refugees. These refugees fled their home countries that were overtaken by violence and ravaged by famine. The refugees have been forced to settle where they are generally unwanted and have often been left to fend for themselves.

The African continent is not unusual in the fact that there are so many refugees. Large-scale refugee migrations have occurred elsewhere in the world and these have lasted for decades without hope of solutions. However, Africa does hold the dubious distinction that almost every country on the continent has at some time been either a producer or a destination for refugees, or both.

The existence of so many refugees and refugee flows, seems to point to some systemic failure in modern African society. At the same time, the fact that so many African refugees seem to adapt to their situation and survive the experience of being in exile, also indicates some unseen ability that is incongruent with the common perception of what a refugee is.

African states shares characteristics with the refugees it helps to create/grant asylum to. Most African states are artificial and both the states and the refugees are fundamentally without roots. The rootlessness and the artificiality of the African state are attributable to its colonial origins and its artificial boundaries. The rootlessness of individual refugees is based on the postcolonial political traumas of displacement and disruption.

One issue that faces both African states and refugees is that alienation. Both the African state and individual refugees are often alienated from the societies in which they find themselves. This alienation can be morally unsettling and can distort the ethics and the standards of behaviour of the refugees and of those in control of the state. What is right and what is wrong, what is bad and what is good, can undergo disconcerting mutations under the pressure of “refugee flows”.

In global terms, African state has become increasingly marginalised and has been pushed into the ghetto of the world system often due to situations beyond its control or, not of its own creation. Like Africa’s refugees, many African states were already living, atleast partly, on handouts before the 1990s. But, the international community has become weary of appeals of charity. Further, the end of the cold war has diverted western aid and investment towards the former members of the Warsaw Pact and the newly liberalizing economies of China, Vietnam and India. The new priorities of the post-cold war era are to some extent bad news for disabled African states and displaced African people.

The metaphor of the African State as a refugee continues with the reality of institutional collapse, psychic bewilderment and human dislocation. Individual refugees can cross borders and seek asylum in other lands. If a government created by a rebel army replaces a failed state, it is theoretically possible for a failed state to also seek asylum and go into exile.

There are few words more frequently used in the contemporary discourse of international politics as ‘humanitarian’. There is talk of humanitarian issues, humanitarian action, humanitarian assistance, humanitarian community, humanitarian standards, humanitarian intervention, humanitarian war and so on. The word ‘humanitarian’, according to the New Oxford Dictionary of English, means ‘concerned with or seeking to promote human welfare’. Its association with all that is humane and positive perhaps explains the irresistible urge to use it to qualify a range of practices (Warner 1998b: 1).

A second reason is that the word ‘humanitarian’ is omnifarious and lacks rigid conceptual boundaries. It has not been defined in international law, that is to say, ‘delineated with the precision accorded such concepts as “human rights” or “refugee”’(Minear and Weiss 1993: 7). It is therefore not captive to any specialised legal vocabulary and tends to transcend the differences between human rights law, refugee law and humanitarian law. A wide range of acts can therefore be classified as ‘humanitarian’. Its extendibility facilitates ambiguous and manipulative uses and allows the practices thus classified to escape critique through shifting the ground of justification from legal rules to the logic of situations.

While humanitarianism has always had a presence in international politics it has never had the salience it possesses today. It has therefore appropriately been asked ‘why has it attained such prominence at this particular moment in history’ (Refugee Survey Quarterly 1998: vi). The author of this paper would like to suggest in the course of this paper that the reason is that ‘humanitarianism’ is the ideology of hegemonic states in the era of globalisation marked by the end of the Cold War and a growing North-South divide.

By ‘ideology’ we can understand here ‘meaning in the service of power’ (Thompson 1990:8). It refers to those practices whose effects are directed toward a group’s legitimacy and authority (McCarthy 1996:30). In other words, the author of this paper wants to argue that the ideology of humanitarianism is, among other things, facilitating the erosion of the fundamental principles of refugee protection (as refugees no longer possess ideological or geopolitical value).

The inclusive and indeterminate character of so – called humanitarian practices has led to the blurring of legal categories, principles, and institutional roles. These practices are threatening legitimate boundaries between international refugee law, human rights law and humanitarian law. Their distinctive and separate spaces are increasingly being transgressed in a bid to exclude and incarcerate those who seek to escape the consequences of a brutal globalisation process. The universal and protective label ‘refugee’ has, as a result, fragmented and translated into the curtailment of rights. Those who now seek refuge find that they represent security threats to states and regions and that all roads lead quickly home. On the other hand, reintegration is no easy task as a strange intimacy characterises the causes and solutions of refugee flows. Such is the humanitarianism of our times. This has impacted and governed refugee assistance in Africa and Nigeria.

Nigeria houses the ECOWAS Headquarters and is co-founder of NEPAD. UNHCR Opened its office in Nigeria in 1982 and it became a full – fledged branch office in 1992. The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between ECOWAS and UNHCR has been accepted as the basis for cooperation between the two organisations. Basically, the responsibility for refugee activities in Nigeria is shared between UNHCR and National Commission for Refugees (NCFR). Concretely, UNHCR was asked to extend its mandate to also cover internal displacement in Nigeria and NCFR was recommended to establish a country program in the country.

At the outbreak of the Liberian Civil War, a government institution was set up to deal exclusively with refugee issues. The promulgation of decree 52 of 1989 brought the Nigerian Government into active involvement in refugee activities. The Liberian crisis led to the establishment of a refugee camp in Nigeria which we shall discuss as we move further.

In 1989, Nigeria established a National Commission for Refugees, Etc. by decree. Section 20 of the decree 52 of 1989 defines a refugee, which is closely modeled on the AU’s definition of refugees. This decree prohibits the expulsion of any person who is a refugee within the meaning of this decree (which covers threats to life, to physical integrity, or to freedom through various means) unless that refugee is a threat to the security of Nigeria or is convicted of a serious crime. The decree further establishes the functions of the National Commission for Refugees and calls for the appointment and sets out the duties of a Federal Commissioner for Refugees. An Eligibility Committee and an Appeals Board have also been established, and the procedures for seeking refugee status are spelled out. Family members of a refugee are allowed to enter Nigeria and remain in the country as long as said refugee is allowed to remain. The final part of the decree lists the rights and duties of refugees.

Broadly speaking, the Nigerian definition of refugees has three clauses-the inclusion clause, the exclusion clause and the cessation clauses. The inclusion clause added to the UN and the AU Convention of refugee.” Unbearable and dangerous conditions prevalent in the country of origin.” The exclusion clause lists the circumstances, which can exclude asylum seekers from the grant of refugee status. The cessation clauses list the conditions under which a person ceases to be a refugee in Nigeria.

In general, the asylum policy of the Nigerian government is very liberal and upto 90%-95% of the cases are accepted; every asylum seeker is pre-interviewed upon arrival and subsequently interviewed by the Eligibility Committee. Asylum seekers rejected are given the right to appeal and are allowed to remain in the country while their case is being processed.

Although no limitations are imposed on refugees seeking employment or to engage in economic activities, the opportunities for both are very limited even for nationals. The chances for durable local integration are very limited if not negligible.

There are two major departments that deal directly with refugees within the National Commission for Refugees (NCFR), these are the protection and counselling departments. Whereas the protection department deals with the refugee protection/security, grant of refugee status, passages etc., the counselling department deals with the provision of basic needs, guidance, counselling etc. Other areas of refugee operation Nigeria (are supposed to) include medicare and feeding.

As a member of the United Nations and a leading contributor to the budget of the African Union, Nigeria has donated large sums of money towards providing solutions to refugee problems to other countries in the African Region. However, its own contribution internally to the Refugee issue in Nigeria was last seen in 2001 and after that in the past five years it has been zero.

The refugee policy in Nigeria mainly consists of responding to crisis as they happen rather than trying to prevent them. Moreover sadly so, refugees are treated and considered as the pawns to be played in the game of political chess. Moreso, as only piecemeal efforts have been made towards making them self reliant while they are here in Nigeria and to integrate into the host community (which is the Oru –Ijebu Community in particular and Nigeria as a whole) both economically and socially.

Presently there are around 10000 recognized refugees [1] in the country, comprising of refugees from Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Ethiopia, Ghana, Chad and Eritrea and other nationals out of which 5700 refugees reside at Oru camp located in Oru-Ijebu town in South West Nigeria’s Ogun State, a two hour drive from Lagos.[i] Liberians comprise majority of the refugees in Nigeria.
The camp was originally set up by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in 1990 to receive hundreds of Liberians who were trooping into Nigeria at the height of a civil war, which killed more than 150,000 people in that country. But as conflicts and disaster also engulfed Sierra Leone, DRC, Rwanda and Sudan, the population swelled to more than 3,000. The majority of refugees have lived in the country for many years and support themselves. A few thousand, however, received partial assistance from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The majority of the refugees comprise of women and children and adolescent boys and girls.
The Oru Refugee Camp is managed by the National Commission for Refugees (NCFR) in collaboration with UNHCR. Projects on the camp are implemented by Members of Implementing Partner Committee (IPC) which is made up of the NCFR (i.e. the camp administration), UNHCRBO, the representative of the military administrator of Ogun state, the Nigerian Red Cross Society, the Ogun State Emergency Relief Agency, the representative of the Commissioner for Police, the Ijebu –North Local Government (INLG), The Liberian Refugee Council (LRWC) and the Justice, Development and Peace Commission (JDPC). The Committee is supposed to meet once every month to deliberate on the camp management.

The Refugee Welfare Council, comprising the refugees themselves run the camp affairs. Out of this, Liberian Welfare Council has eight members, Sierra Leone has seven members. The other nationals such as the refugees from Sudan, Rwanda and Congo DRC also find representation on the Refugee Welfare Council.
Oru refugee camp, unlike most refugee camps has permanent structures. The Camp site (which used to be the former Muslim Teachers Training College) is made up of eight blocks of residential accommodation, vast arable land (the land has since be donated by the host community for farming purposes), recreational and sporting facilities, block of classrooms, a community hall. Official residential quarters, an administrative block, a mosque, refugee self-help housing project and other basics amenities. Most of the refugees are with their family thus each family has a room.
Running inside the camp is a canal, which is almost dry but overgrown with weeds. But there are small patches of mini- farms here and there, otherwise the expanse of land is covered with grasses. Most residents of the camp, (which lacks infrastructure such as piped water and electricity) are Liberians and Sierra Leoneans.

Conditions in the camp are poor. There is no drinking water or electricity. Food shortages breed malnutrition. Some refugees use petty trading and manual labor outside the camp as an extra source of income. Those not in camps take shelter in school buildings and police compounds where they barely survive on generosity and luck.

The Former Chairman of the (Liberian) Refugees Welfare Council, Mr. Fred Lamadaine informed the author of this paper that the location of the camp is a hindrance towards getting a good job or coming up with a means of livelihood is difficult as the town is isolated from the major economic areas in the country. Also, integration and repatriation of educated refugees is a problem even though some of them have now been absorbed in the tertiary sector in Nigeria but then the percentage, about ten, is very small. He also noted that the resettlement program is very slow in Nigeria. During a recent visit, camp officials intimated us with the administration of the camp and the challenges they face in meeting the needs of the inmates. There is only one doctor who visits thrice a week and one camp nurse who is always supposed to be there for the entire refugee population of 5700 refugees. There are no specialists such as gynaecologists or paedriaticians visiting the camp even though women and children form majority. There are several cases of ill-health in the camp as the lack of quality foods also contribute to ill health in the camp. There are two known cases of death due to HIV /AIDS. There is also an unconfirmed allegation that some of the ladies in camp veered into prostitution. But we were told that if we “come to the camp in the night you will see cars driving in, some men will come to pick their girlfriends”
Evelyn Johnson a Liberian Refugee, is a mother of two children aged six and two years. She said her husband died in the Liberian war. She says that her major headache in the camp is economic empowerment. She says “I do garri, sell rice and palm oil but these are still not enough, sometimes I go out to beg to make ends meet.”
Apart from the financial difficulties in camp, there is concern about several youths in camp who loiter around as they cannot go to school or find some meaningful vocations.

As the world’s attention drifts to new conflicts and famines, the African refugees in the Oru Refugee camp and outside the camp in some parts of Nigeria, have learned that they must fend for themselves as the agencies which are involved in their protection and assistance in Nigeria are often into tokenism and jargonisms rather than seriously carrying out their roles and incorporating refugee voices in their refugee assistance programs. This is a pointer towards the wider debate of restructuring and reframing refugee and human rights law in Nigeria.