TORONTO, April 11, 2001 -- Two years into the democratic, civilian government of Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, scholars and human rights activists fear the international community is too complacent to recognize early signs of unrest in the country that could lead to a larger conflict and an African refugee crisis on an unprecedented scale.

To alert policy makers to these developments, two Nigerian scholars will present their observations in a seminar entitled Nigeria and Early Warning Systems on Monday, April 16 at 12:30 pm in room 305 York Lanes, sponsored by the Centre for Refugee Studies (CRS) at York University. They are: Obiora Okafor, a professor of law at York’s Osgoode Hall Law School, specializing in public international law, refugee law, and international human rights, and author of Redefining Legitimate Statehood (Kluwer, 2000) about the crisis of legitimacy currently facing post-colonial and other states the world over; and Patricia Ama Tokunbo Williams, an external associate of CRS and former professor of political science at Nigeria’s Ogun State University whose research focuses on human rights and the position of women in Nigeria.

"There is a crisis of legitimate statehood in Nigeria that, left unaddressed, will explode into a national conflict, and both the Nigerian government and the international community are not responding adequately to the early warning signs," says Okafor. "The root of every refugee crisis relates to deeply ingrained perceptions about the legitimacy of statehood and the intense competition among minority and majority communities for recognition of their social and political claims." Okafor points to civil unrest last year in the town of Odi, near the Niger River delta, that resulted in the Nigerian military leveling the town. He says incidents like this are sure to spread if the government fails to heed the call of minorities and non-governmental organizations to sit down together at a sovereign national conference.

"Such a conference would, for the first time in Nigeria’s colonial and post-colonial history, result in a constitution and political arrangement that is legitimated directly by the governed themselves." Okafor says international pressure must be brought to bear on the Nigerian government to address adequately the demands of its constituent communities for limited autonomy and self-government.

"The urgency is palpable, and with one in five Africans living in Nigeria, a refugee crisis resulting from civil conflict would make the refugee crises in other countries look like child’s play," says Okafor.

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For further information, please contact:

Colleen Burke
Centre for Refugee Studies
York University
(416) 736-5663
cburke@yorku.ca

Susan Bigelow
Media Relations
York University
(416) 736-2100, ext. 22091
sbigelow@yorku.ca
YU/045/01