Judicial Precedent and the Dismantling of the “No Movement Policy” in Nigeria

Jul 13

Introduction

On March 13, 2018, Anambra State of Nigeria restored its citizens’ right to move—and it was revolutionary. Though seemingly a freedom that goes without saying, the right to move has been restricted by many state governments in Nigeria. For the sake of environmental sanitation, “no movement” policies have become commonplace in a country whose economy itself depends on its citizens’ ability to move freely. Specifically in Anambra State, citizens were forbidden from leaving their homes or conducting business on every last Saturday of the month during the sanitation period between the hours of 7 am and 10 am.[1] This policy exempted essential workers—a group which constitutes a sizable minority of the Nigerian population. If citizens were found in violation of this order, they were subject to dehumanizing treatment by law enforcement personnel before being swiftly arrested, convicted, and fined by a special court.

These regulations have been infuriating to the public, and the Nigerian judiciary’s acquiescence has left many citizens hopeless. The Nigerian government has been characterized as having “a hazy and fragmented judicial landscape in which courts reach decisions without offering any coherent explanation for doing so.”[2] Like many legal qualms in Nigeria, citizens left this breach of human rights at the mercy of the judiciary. However, these normalized restrictive practices came to an abrupt halt when Mayor Asiegbu challenged them in Suit No. A/Misc.310/2017, Barr. Mayor Asiegbu v. Anambra State Government, Attorney General of Anambra State, and Commissioner of Police Anambra State. In a landmark decision, the Awka Division of the High Court of Anambra State ruled in favor of Mayor Asiegbu and deemed the restriction of movement of people in Anambra State “illegal, unconstitutional, null and void.” As this essay delves into the legal implications of this decision and its societal repercussions, I argue that this decision was not just a momentary and regional victory. Rather, this case demonstrates the potential for societal advancement in Nigeria through civic engagement, the active use of judicial systems, and a redistribution of power to citizens. This essay will convey that Barr. Mayor Asiegbu v. Anambra State Government was not simply a case limited to environmental sanitation. It was a human rights case with the capacity to revolutionize the instrumentality of the Nigerian Courts in advancing justice and the potential to set a legal precedent which prioritizes human rights as truly inalienable.

History of Public Sanitation in West Africa

Why did the Nigerian government use environmental sanitation as justification to legally forbid citizens from moving outside of their homes? The answer can be found by exploring the colonial history and political dynamics of dirt and sanitation in Africa. Beginning in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, colonizers would leverage racist discourses of sanitation and disease to justify racial segregation and undermine African agency and self-governance, forging a hierarchy that rendered Africans unfit to have cultural and economic ownership over their daily lives and unworthy of a place on the global stage. This subjugation was accomplished through mass media, colonial public health policy, town-planning initiatives, and propaganda films—all of which contributed to and shaped “local perspectives on dirt and urbanization.” British philosopher Thomas Malcolm Knox promulgated that Lagos “turns out to be a town of unspeakable squalor. It is no wonder that it is the nurse of disease. Filth everywhere.”[3]

Seeking “sanitary salvation,” British West African cities of the colonial and post-colonial eras began internalizing “powerfully anti-African visions of how urban environments should look in order to be free from what they identified as dirt.”[4] In efforts to purge itself of these racist narratives and gain world class citizenship, Nigeria underwent a quest for cleanliness that still continues today. Going from the “Armpit of Africa”[5] to the “Big Apple of Africa,”[6] Lagos rebranded itself in order to dispel colonial imaginations and reconfigure understandings about Africa. However, as the Nigerian government sought to disprove “the understandings of dirt [that] came to structure colonial governance,” it enforced sanitation measures, such as the “no movement” policy, which currently prevents everyday citizens from conducting important business at key market hours of the day.[7] They also uprooted traditional African homes in favor of single-story tenements that mirrored the worst aspects of British inner-city slums. Though it is important to nullify false perceptions of Africa as dirty and primitive, citizens cannot be sidelined when establishing mechanisms to achieve these aims. As the people most affected by these negative stereotypes, Nigerian citizens must be centered in environmental sanitation solutions. A refusal to do so results in changes that lack sustainability and promote immobility. The Nigerian government’s approach to environmental sanitation reveals that it is more willing to invest in initiatives that promote the semblance of prosperity than prosperity itself. Rather than support the key to development—its citizens—by streamlining transport and movement of citizens, it strives for cleanliness and modernity only in a superficial sense. Through these unconstitutional movement restriction laws, the Nigerian government has proved that it would rather work against the flow of communities and cities than with it.

Evaluating Barr. Mayor Asiegbu v. Anambra State Government

Despite the perception of public powerlessness that inevitably emerges from the reality of unchecked government control, Barr. Mayor Asiegbu v. Anambra State Government represents a moment of disruption when this control was challenged for the sake of a novel—though unexplored—framework for reimagining government control over public roads. Even more so, this case forged new legal strategies for reframing public discourse between the State and communities and bolstered the law as an avenue through which better communication can develop.

But what was the court’s rationale that rendered the barricading of Enugu/Onitsha Old Road at Amawbia axis by officials and the restriction the movement” of Mayor Asiegbu and “other passengers travelling to Lagos on board “God is Good” Toyota commuter bus” illegal, unconstitutional, null and void? According to Section 41 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended), “every citizen of Nigeria is entitled to move freely throughout Nigeria and to reside in any part thereof, and no citizen of Nigeria shall be expelled from Nigeria or refused entry thereto or exit therefrom.” Hence, the “no movement policy” was directly inconsistent with the constitutional right to freedom of movement. Although prior court rulings had defended a reasonably justifiable restriction on human rights, Cheranci v. Cheranci—a 1960 hallmark case which led to the enforcement of the newly established fundamental human rights provision in the Nigerian constitution—maintains that the restriction “must not be excessive or out of proportion to the objects which it seeks to achieve.”[8] Barr. Mayor Asiegbu proved that the “no movement policy” was an excessive exercise of police power.

By evaluating the “no movement policy” as a case study, it is clear that Nigerian citizens have been denied their “right to the city,” which permits “inhabitants [to] contribute directly to all decisions that produce urban space in their city.”[9] Whether contestation of this right and the feasibility with which the Nigerian government can feasibly deny its citizens this right depends on the extent to which it marginalizes them.

“The right to the city” is centered on the politics of the poor. Because unchecked governmental power and control necessitates the marginalization of the people, it is crucial that imaginative denizens with status, platform, and reputation in society, such as Barr. Mayor Asiegbu, continue to strive for progress. Though this strategy alone will not unilaterally end the political and socioeconomic oppression of the Nigerian people, it is necessary for prominent public figures with access to State resources—something which marginalized people lack—to act.

According to Mark Purcell, Professor of Urban Design and Planning at University of Washington, the defense of the right to the city is dependent upon the upholding of two principal rights for urban inhabitants: 1) the right to participation, and 2) the right to appropriation. Simply put, the right to participation insists that citizens “play a central role in any decision that contributes to the production of urban space,” while the right to appropriation asserts “the right of inhabitants to physically access, occupy, and use urban space.” Both rights have been grossly violated and disregarded through the Nigerian government’s enforcement of societal immobility. Because most Nigerian elected officials are spatially and socioeconomically removed from the city and its character of being upheld by the marginalized within it, they are unable to make decisions which promote the public’s welfare—rather, they make decisions in order to benefit from the city’s capitalistic capacities.

Abuse of the Legal System in Nigeria

In his suit against the Anambra State government, Asiegbu claimed that the government could no longer enact laws simply because the Nigerian government had the unchecked authority to do so. The military tradition of the Nigerian government, starting with “the wretchedly negligent, repressive and rapacious military government of Sani Abacha,'' which was characterized by “authoritarian rule with its attendant lack of urban planning,”[10] reverberates in modern perceptions of immobility projected onto marginalized Nigerians. These perceptions absolve the Nigerian government from taking accountability for their hand in promoting widespread poverty and dehumanize citizens by justifying excessive governmental violence against them. The abuse that violators of the policy faced exposed the government’s underlying aims of such a policy: the “projection of power at the heart of the punitive functioning… the performance of urban environmental sanitation... and the political reflex which sought to impel the citizen to reproduce surveillance and cleanliness as statecraft across the extent of the city.”[11]

If the primary function of the “no movement policy” was strictly the promotion of environmental sanitation and public health, the government has failed to account for “petro shortage, personal insecurity, long interruptions in electricity and water service, and multiple roadblocks” leading to citizens’ “sheer worry about the futures…the shocking waste of hope and energy.”[12] Corruption within the judicial system relies on the premise of hopelessness: keeping standards low enough for the populace to forget that they deserve rights. Along with the reinforcement of the police state, the “no movement policy” reflected the insensitivity of the State to the needs of the poor and the abuse of the legal system against oppressed people. Public life in Nigeria and the livelihood of citizens is contingent upon one’s ability to ambulate, given that the lack of job security necessitates an endemic “chronic uncertainty” and legal, paralegal, and illegal roadside trade and entrepreneurship. Therefore, it is ironic that the Nigerian government, through irrational policies restricting the movement of citizens, punishes the ingenuity of its citizens, which is the very reason that Nigerian society can persist in spite of the failures of the government to provide adequate resources to its citizens. This lawsuit, however, represented a refusal to be pushed to the margins any longer.

Establishing Legal Precedent for Freedom of Movement

Barr. Mayor Asiegbu v. Anambra State Government has helped establish important precedent while also revealing the potential utility of human rights legal institutions to reframe law as an avenue for justice. Nigeria’s “failure to integrate in its governance democratic principles, which guarantee the public’s right to know, participate in decision making and access justice”[13] has adversely affected the legitimacy of the Constitution itself.[14] However, appeals to the Constitution in ways that benefit the needs and interests of the public strengthen the Constitution’s legitimacy. The 2016 case of Faith Okafor v. Lagos State Government established a precedent that defended the civilian’s constitutional right to freedom of movement, leading to success for Barr. Mayor Asiegbu.[15] In addition to showcasing the power of legal precedent, this trailblazing case demonstrated the power of human rights legal institutions. Although Okafor’s case was initially dismissed at the Lagos State High Court for lack of merit, the Human Rights and Empowerment Project (HREP) appealed to the Lagos Court of Appeal on her behalf,[16] eventually winning a ruling from a Nigerian superior court that restriction of movement in Anambra State on grounds of environmental sanitation is unconstitutional.

The acknowledgement of Barr. Mayor Asiegbu v. Anambra State Government and Faith Okafor v. Lagos State Government as human rights cases informs our understanding of the politics of physical movement. Our ability to move is political. Mobility, whether socially or spatially or economically, is often disputed in overly complex legal or economic terms, to the point that citizens and their agency are streamlined out of the conversation. Yet, this case is proof that, despite what the circumstances might purport, freedoms of the Nigerian people belong to them. The restoration of many of these stolen rights are not only critical and possible, but necessary and probable.

Cases like these remind us of our rights—even when they are downplayed or put in such terms that they feel distant and impersonal. Unfortunately, the dismantling of these “no movement policies” must occur on a state-by-state, case-by-case basis.[17] The difficulty ahead lies in the slow process to which the removal of restriction laws may subscribe. Though it is only a matter of time “before the trend of nullifying this unconditional tradition spreads to all the states where it is practiced,”[18] human rights legal institutions should mobilize and launch a more systematic attack on these regional injustices.

Conclusion

Barr. Mayor Asiegbu v. Anambra State Government offers a glimmer of hope that, even in Nigeria, positive legal change is possible. Though Nigerian law has historically been perverted to legitimize the oppression of its people, Barr. Mayor Asiegbu, leveraging his eminent position within and knowledge of the legal system, fought for legal solutions that benefit the public good. In fact, this case has redirected power away from lawmakers and redistributed it back to citizens.[19] Indeed, the sedentary, immobile perceptions that have been projected upon marginalized people have permitted the government to wield the unchecked power, suppressing the very thing that brings vitality to Nigeria: movement.

This case has also revealed the delicate ownership of the State over public goods and resources. It has shown that, no matter how the state successfully or unsuccessfully tries to conceal it, the public has, is, and will continue to be in true control over its collective bodily and national autonomy.

Upon examination of these human rights issues in Nigeria, there are two fundamental questions that emerge: “To what extent?” and “At what cost?” Though, in this case, the issue in dispute was the extent to which constitutional rights can be breached with respect to environmental sanitation, there are many other rights which corrupt government officials have infringed with impunity. These infringements of constitutional freedoms not only deprive citizens of human rights, but they also threaten the agency of citizens over their own bodies, cities, and nation. The spirit of a nation resides in the power and empowerment of its people. Once this is stripped away, democracy itself is in jeopardy. This case has given Anambra State citizens hope in not only the future of their society, but also, even more importantly, in their capacity to take part in propelling that future forward.

References

[1] Gozie Francis Moneke, “Restriction of Movement During Environmental Sanitation Amounts to Violation of the Fundamental Right to Freedom of Movement – Fides Media,” FIDES Media, accessed March 29, 2021, https://fidesnigeria.org/restriction-of-movement-during-environmental-sanitation-amounts-to-violation-of-the-fundamental-right-to-freedom-of-movement/.

[2] Omosebi Olajide, “Justice No Longer Lives in Our Court,” SSRN Scholarly Paper (Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network, September 9, 2013), https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2393565; Basil Ugochukwu, “Balancing, Proportionality, and Human Rights Adjudication in Comparative Context: Lessons from Nigeria,” Transnational Human Rights Review 1 (2014): 1.

[3] Stephanie Newell, Histories of Dirt: Media and Urban Life in Colonial and Postcolonial Lagos (Durham: Duke University Press, 2020), 1.

[4] Newell, 11.

[5] “The Lagosian Oasis,” SURFER Magazine (blog), September 4, 2017, https://www.surfer.com/features/the-lagosian-oasis/.

[6] “Lagos, Nigeria: Africa’s Big Apple,” Fortune, accessed March 30, 2021, https://fortune.com/2014/06/12/lagos-nigeria-big-apple/.

[7] Newell, 1.

[8] Alan Gledhill, “Fundamental Rights in Northern Nigeria,” Journal of African Law 4, no. 2 (1960): 115–17.

[9] Mark Purcell, “Excavating Lefebvre: The Right to the City and Its Urban Politics of the Inhabitant,” GeoJournal 58, no. 2/3 (2002): 99–108, https://doi.org/10.1023/B:GEJO.0000010829.62237.8f.

[10] Gbemisola Animasawun, “Marginal Men & Urban Social Conflicts Okada Riders in Lagos,” 2018, 240, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787440517.011.

[11] John Manton, “‘ENVIRONMENTAL AKALISM’ AND THE WAR ON FILTH: THE PERSONIFICATION OF SANITATION IN URBAN NIGERIA,” Africa 83, no. 4 (November 2013): 606–22, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0001972013000466.