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Statement Before the Committee of the Maryland House of Delegates by Walter C. Carrington, Former Ambassador to Nigeria Hearing on HB 1273, State Finance and Procurement Sanctions Against Nigeria Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, I thank you for the opportunity to appear before you this afternoon to testify on HB 1273. As one who was a resident and taxpayer of this state for the ten years immediately preceding my appointment as ambassador to the Federal Republic of Nigeria in 1993, I wish to register my support for this Bill which codifies Maryland's sovereign right to set the standards to which all who would do business with her must adhere. I have recently returned from four years in Nigeria representing the United States Government's policy of promoting democracy and human rights. I am convinced that this bill will further those objectives. I arrived in Nigeria two weeks before General Sani Abacha seized power in the wake of the military having annulled what international and Nigerian observers called the freest and fairest election the country had ever held. In the four years I witnessed the Abacha regime in power I also witnessed the steady deterioration of the economy and political structure of Africa's most richly endowed country. I have seen newspapers banned and journalists persecuted; the winner of the annulled election jailed and his crusading wife assassinated; labor unions destroyed and their leaders imprisoned; human rights activists intimidated and incarcerated. The one former military ruler who kept his promise and ceded power to an elected civilian government was falsely convicted of coup plotting and his erstwhile deputy allowed to die in prison under suspicious circumstances. The best and the brightest of Nigeria's sons and daughters have been driven into exile including her only Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka. Nigeria's foremost environmentalist and leader of the Ogoni people, Ken Saro-Wiwa, was hanged along with eight of his colleagues after a kangaroo trial before a military chaired tribunal. I could, unfortunately go on and on reciting the abuses of this repressive regime. Abuses which have led it to be censured and sanctioned by the United Nations, the Commonwealth, the European Union, and the International Labor Organization among others. Our government has been continually rebuffed in its attempts to have meaningful dialogue with this government which in addition to being sanctioned by us for its anti-democratic actions has also for five years running been decertified by the president for its refusal to cooperate with us in stemming the flow of drugs smuggled into this country by Nigerians who are responsible for fifty percent of the heroin entering the United States. In 1996 we sent a a high level delegation representing 11 different drug agencies in the United States to discuss the narcotics problem with the Abacha regime in Nigeria. They made several promises and kept not one of them. Special envoys aplenty came to Nigeria during my tenure there and all came away empty handed. The business lobbyists who have come here to block this bill would be better advised, in my opinion, to lobby their colleagues in Nigeria who at best have remained silent in face of the growing repression in Nigeria and at worse have given sustenance to the regime. I regret to say that the business community by trying to deflect stronger condemnation of the Abacha military government have become part of the problem rather than part of the solution. Their actions confuse the Nigerians and lead the military junta to believe that if they just stonewall us long enough we will weaken in our resolve and will jettison our human rights concerns in order to defend, at all costs, our economic interests. We are hearing the same arguments from the business community and those who champion their interests that we heard a decade ago concerning South Africa. Had states and municipalities heeded their advice then, South Africa would still be ruled by the racist doctrine of apartheid and Nelson Mandela would still be in prison. Whatever the track record may be for economic sanctions in other parts of the world they have worked in South Africa and I am convinced, knowing the venal nature of the Abacha regime, that they will work in Nigeria too. Up to Top HOME | Email Signup | About Us | Contact Us | Terms of Use | © 2008 Sierra Club |
