Rule of Law

Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue (nicknamed Teodorin), vice president of Equatorial Guinea, son of his country’s president, and heir apparent to that office, made headlines this week. According to media reports, authorities in Brazil seized some $16 million in cash and high-end watches from his delegation, where he had reportedly traveled for medical treatment. Brazilian law limits the amount of cash visitors can bring into the country to $2,400.  This sort of awkward international incident is not particularly novel for Vice President Obiang. In 2016, Swiss authorities seized eleven of his luxury cars as part of an investigation into corruption and money laundering that culminated in his conviction for embezzlement, in abstentia, in a Paris court last year. In 2014, he resolved the U.S. Justice Department’s charges that he used his country’s public funds for private gain by reaching a $30 million settlement with federal authorities, requiring him to sell his Malibu mansion, a Ferrari, and some of his Michael Jackson memorabilia. None of these previous brushes with the law seem to have cramped the vice president’s style, much of which he documents on Instagram.  The lavish lifestyle, luxury goods, and very public nature of Teodorin Obiang’s wealth echo the habits of his father, who has ruled his small, oil-rich country for a jaw-dropping thirty-nine years. They may be about more than champagne tastes. To some degree, they are about showmanship, and a performance of power meant to establish his place in a hierarchy. With each outrageous extravagance, a message is being sent—he is formidable, to be feared and obeyed, and legitimately in a position of authority.  Of course, political leaders wielding flashy trappings of wealth as personal hallmarks are no strangers to more powerful countries like the United States. But in a place like Equatorial Guinea, where despite an extraordinarily high GDP per capital over three quarters of the population lives in poverty, it may be especially important as a leadership style. Equatorial Guinea’s governing authorities have proven adept at suppressing dissent but not at the most basic service delivery. Connective tissue between popular demand and government priorities is nearly nonexistent. It may be that making extraordinarily ostentatious acquisitions is simply what it means to wield political power in the context the Obiang dynasty has created, one that is devoid of democratic or legal accountability. A degree of notoriety for corruption is beside the point. 

President Trump tweeted on August 22 that he has directed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to “closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures” and the “large scale killing of farmers.” In his tweet, the president quoted Fox News host Tucker Carlson that “South African government is now seizing land from white farmers.” Carlson had interviewed Marian Tupy, a senior policy analyst at a conservative Washington think tank, who recently penned an article calling on Trump to “warn South Africa on land expropriations,” comparing the new South African policy with that of Zimbabwe. Among a number of rebukes from South African media, civil society, and government, Deputy President Mabuza stated that, “as the leadership of the ANC and government, we are clear that the implementation of land reform measures must not result in social fractures and racial polarization.” The widespread killing of white farmers is a trope of AfriForum, a predominately Afrikaner organization opposed to land reform on the basis that it is a threat to South Africa’s white population. In June, an AfriForum delegation visited Washington, D.C., and met with, among others, think tanks, the office of Senator Ted Cruz, USAID, and appeared on Carlson’s show. However, the far more credible AgriSA, an industry group, indicates that farm murders are at a nineteen-year low. With respect to the land issue as well as the murder rate, statistics are generally poor. Nobody really knows how many white farmers there are, nor is there a consensus definition of "farmer" or "farm worker," which clouds the data. Furthermore, statistics as to the racial distribution of land ownership in South Africa are also in dispute. That being said, that white South Africans own a majority of land and account for an outsized proportion of economic activity is clear. There is a general consensus in South Africa on the need for land reform, but less over what it should look like. The governing African National Congress has called for constitutional amendments that could broaden or clarify the government’s current ability to expropriate land without compensation, which already exists in the constitution as it is. President Cyril Ramaphosa has stated that land reform will follow the rule of law, and that its implementation must not adversely affect economic growth or food security. The issue of land reform is being dealt with in a transparent political process now underway. Reform will likely incorporate both the “release” of public or tribal trust land for redistribution, as well as “expropriation” without compensation from private individuals.  For outsiders, the South African debate over land reform is distorted by the experience of Zimbabwe. The Mugabe regime expropriated without compensation private land using vigilante violence and ignoring the rule of law and the rulings of the judiciary. By contrast, South Africa is a constitutional democracy with a record of following the law. The constitution limits what parliament can do and acknowledges the right to private property. Whatever the outcome of the current political process, the results will likely be challenged in the courts, which have a history of standing up to the government. Its decisions cannot be ignored by the government. A recent example clearly illustrates the fundamental difference between South Africa and Zimbabwe. The political transition in South Africa from former President Jacob Zuma, accused of hundreds of counts of corruption, to current President Ramaphosa occurred within legal and constitutional bounds and even followed ANC party procedure. In Zimbabwe, by contrast, President Robert Mugabe was deposed by his deputy, Emmerson Mnangagwa, with the help of the military in a thinly-veiled coup. For the umpteenth time, South Africa is not Zimbabwe.  

Latin America’s judiciaries are engulfed in corruption scandals. In Colombia a former Supreme Court member was arrested on charges of corruption and bribery. In Peru multiple judges stand accused of trading favorable rulings and shortened sentences for money and perks. In Guatemala, lawyers and justices face charges of rigging Supreme Court appointments. And in Mexico the attorney general's office fired one of its own for delving too deep into alleged bribes to the former head of the national oil company Pemex, a close confidant of President Enrique Pena Nieto. These acts, more than similar crimes by dirty politicians, undermine the region’s fragile rule of law, revealing deep-seated corruption among those responsible for holding others to account. They show that the widespread legal reforms of the last two decades, while necessary, weren’t enough. The next essential step is professionalizing the judiciary itself. Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, and others have overhauled their legal systems, introducing oral trials, arbitration, and mediation alternatives, and strengthening due process and the presumption of innocence. As part of larger shifts from inquisitorial to adversarial systems, these efforts have begun to make justice more transparent, effective, and fair. Many Latin American countries have also passed specific anticorruption measures. Brazil criminalized bid-rigging, bribery, and fraud in public procurement. Argentina outlawed nepotism, and along with Peru and Colombia upped the penalties for corporate bribery. Mexico created a new national anti-corruption system, explicitly outlawing bribes, embezzlement, and the failure to disclose conflicts of interest, and creating a dedicated prosecutor to go after perpetrators. Legislators also gave prosecutors new corruption-fighting tools. Brazil’s successful Lava Jato (Carwash) investigations, leading to more than 200 convictions of politicians and business leaders for bribery and kickbacks, including former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, have hinged on plea bargaining, introduced to the fight against organized crime by a 2013 law. Nearly a dozen nations in the region claim similar statutes that enable court officials to ease sentences in exchange for information on accomplices and higher-ups. Yet as the ongoing wave of scandals attests, beyond new laws Latin American nations need judges and lawyers able and willing to wield them. This in turn requires a professional legal bureaucracy. Although harder to conjure than legislation, a qualified civil service is possible to build. Look, for instance, at Chile and Brazil. Chile has a long history of meritocratic public hiring, drawing on credentials and examinations rather than party links. Attesting to the respect afforded their profession, judges, like other bureaucrats, often come from well-heeled families and elite schools. In the wake of Chile's own corruption scandals, one involving former president Michelle Bachelet's son and daughter-in-law, the government expanded efforts to inculcate legal impartiality and professionalism beyond just the courtroom, introducing civic and ethics education to elementary schools nationally. Brazil’s merit-based system for choosing most judges and prosecutors was inscribed in its 1988 Constitution. Over the last 30 years its judicial core has evolved, the politically appointed judges of the past retiring and their replacements rising up through the new technocratic process. Judge Sergio Moro of Lava Jato fame is but one of these new professionals, respected and well remunerated for their technical acumen and political autonomy. Throughout the region citizen anger over corruption is growing. Promises to take on widespread graft helped to catapult Mexico’s president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to a historic victory. Corruption preoccupied Colombians heading to polls last spring, and ranks high among voter concerns in Brazil’s upcoming presidential race. In Peru it brought down the previous president and threatens the current head of state, Martin Vizcarra, if he can’t harness the momentum to his cause through a pending referendum. Yet what Latin American leaders must now do is to change career incentives, ensuring that judicial robes aren’t bought but earned, and that merit trumps connections. They need to create respected and rewarding professional paths, enticing the talented and ambitious to the fight against corruption rather than succumb to its temptations. Brazil and Chile show that changing the makeup of the justice system is possible. But a process that takes a generation will surely test the patience of Latin America's voters. View article originally published on Bloomberg.

Khan has a powerful opportunity to deliver on his party’s platform and further Pakistani women’s workplace safety -- and the economic growth of the entire nation.

The Nigerian formal judicial system, based on colonial precedent, is notoriously slow and often expensive. In effect, accessibility to justice is limited, and some would say its non-existent for the majority of Nigerians that are poor. Hence the popularity of courts conducted by traditional and religious rulers (many times the same individuals). These are often of colonial or pre-colonial origin. Islamic courts based on Sharia, or Islamic law, are especially popular in the predominately-Muslim parts of the country. Such courts have credibility with the people, especially in rural areas, and, as a practical matter, government officials usually accept their decisions. (Appeals to the formal judicial system from traditional courts are possible, but very expensive.)  Unable to rely on the state, urban Nigerians are also finding alternative ways to address their grievances. Some are turning to a radio show, “The Bakete Family,” hosted by Ahman Isah and broadcast by Human Rights Radio six days a week from Abuja. Participants reportedly present themselves at the studio or call in. Those selected present the alleged injustices they have suffered, ranging from unjustified firings to domestic disputes. The show names and shames government officials and unresponsive departments and also tries to mediate disputes, especially domestic ones. On occasion, it publicizes the phone numbers of government officials, urging listeners to call them to demand they take action. There is anecdotal evidence that the method works—at least sometimes. There are no listener figures, but media reports that there are large crowds that gather outside the show’s studio each morning.  “Shaming” would appear to be especially effective in a profoundly religious country, such as Nigeria. Ahman Isah says, “The laws are there, but the enforcement is nothing.” According to Isah, “It is as good as not being there. The laws only favor the rich and the mighty in the country, ordinary Nigerians are not being protected by law.” But, he also says, “One who has nothing has God, and one who has God has everything.” Most Nigerians would probably agree. For more on Nigeria, Matthew Page and I provide an overview of its politics, history, and culture, including the threat of Boko Haram and religious conflicts in our new book, Nigeria: What Everyone Needs to Know, which was published by Oxford University Press in July.

Lately, the news from Uganda has been troubling. Rising crime rates have come to dominate the national narrative, as murders, robberies, and kidnappings have raised alarm among average citizens and elites alike. In the middle of this general insecurity, a number of apparent, targeted assassinations of prominent figures in politics and the security services are fodder for the rumors about motives, plots, and intrigues that swirl around social media. The realities of the violence, commentaries, and theories have all prompted concerns about an unraveling of the country’s relative stability in the midst of a troubled region. On June 20, President Yoweri Museveni, who has led Uganda since 1986, delivered an address to Parliament billed as a strategic plan to bring an end to criminality and violence. His ten proposals were heavy on technological solutions and increased state surveillance, but it remains to be seen how practical and effective they will be. Interestingly, President Museveni chose to deliver a lengthy, historical prologue to his contemporary policy prescriptions. Presenting this juxtaposition, he paternalistically told the assembled members of Parliament that, “you know about everybody else but know nothing about yourselves” as he asserted that his government had delivered peace to Uganda for the first time in five-hundred years. The tone of the address served as a captivating snapshot of the political climate in Uganda. Museveni has maintained his grip on power for thirty-two years by pitting potential successors against each other, ensuring that security services are loyal to him above all else, and reminding the people of his country that he delivered them from a chaotic and brutally violent past. These tactics point to the all-but-explicit message that he alone can prevent a return to bedlam. However, these very methods have played a role in enabling the current crisis, as powerful factions jostle for the sources of patronage that sustain them. These latest waves of crime undercut Museveni’s claim that he is capable of providing the stabilizing force the country requires. With roughly seventy percent of Ugandans under the age of twenty-five, the vast youthful population may not be able to imagine another leader of their country just yet, but they may begin to question whether the septuagenarian in charge is really a bulwark against disorder when disorder continues to rise all around them. 

Lost in the avalanche of commentary on Associate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s retirement from the Supreme Court are its potential ramifications for the U.S. role in the world. Over the past three decades, Kennedy has shepherded an evolving, increasingly productive relationship between the United States and international law. Whoever succeeds him will likely take a more conservative approach, setting up a potential confrontation between a sovereignty-obsessed America and the international rule of law. The proper place of international law in U.S. law and jurisprudence—the subject of the legal field known as “foreign relations law”—is a political minefield. It generates vigorous, sometimes vituperative debate among constitutional scholars, including sitting Supreme Court justices. At first glance, this controversy seems surprising. After all, the U.S. Constitution (Article 6, Section 2) designates treaties to which the United States is party as the “supreme Law of the Land,” alongside the Constitution itself and U.S. statutes enacted under it. The United States also recognizes the authority of customary international law, or that body of law that has emerged from enduring practices of states. The Founding Fathers, moreover, were well read in and supportive of international law. In 1793, John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States, opined that the “peace, prosperity, and reputation of the United States, will always depend on their fidelity to their engagements”—that is, their respect for international legal obligations. A decade later, Jay’s successor, John Marshall, established what became known as the Charming Betsy Doctrine, arguing, “An act of Congress ought never to be construed to violate the law of nations if any other possible construction remains.” If only it were that simple. In practice, American lawyers, policymakers, and politicians continue to debate the status of international law and its relationship with U.S. domestic law. These disagreements were front and center a century ago, when the U.S. Senate considered and ultimately rejected membership in the League of Nations. They erupted again in the 1950s in the near passage of the Bricker Amendment, which would have placed extraordinary political and procedural hurdles in the way of U.S. ratification of multilateral treaties. Such debates have only intensified since the end of the Cold War. An entire cohort of conservative legal scholars, christened “new sovereigntists,” has emerged. They are adamant that trends in international law undermine U.S. independence by threatening the sanctity and integrity of its constitutional system of government. These complaints focus on several alleged indignities. Among other things, self-styled sovereigntists decry what they perceive as the proliferation of intrusive multilateral treaties that infringe on domestic policy and regulations; the cross-border activism of left-wing U.S. advocacy groups seeking to bind the United States to a globalist agenda and UN conventions; the tendency of progressive legal scholars to create instant customary international law by elevating still-contested international norms; and the growing tendency of U.S. courts—including the Supreme Court—to make reference to the reasoning and rulings of foreign counterparts in their own legal decisions. On this last issue Justice Kennedy emerged as a bête noire for constitutional “originalists.” He earned their animus by repeatedly citing foreign jurisprudence in pivotal court decisions in which he sided with his more liberal counterparts. Kennedy’s opinions in those cases rejected the conservative notion that the U.S. Constitution should be hermetically sealed, to avoid contagion from legal reasoning and trends in other lands, even fellow democracies. Among Kennedy’s loudest critics was John Bolton, a sovereignty warrior who now serves as President Trump’s national security advisor. From his former perch at the American Enterprise Institute, Bolton consistently argued that foreign legal influences can only adulterate and contaminate U.S. constitutional reasoning. For years, Kennedy’s main antagonist was fellow Associate Justice Antonin Scalia. In a series of memorable court cases, the two tangled over the propriety of referencing the findings of foreign courts in their decisions. One instance occurred in 2005, when Kennedy, the Court’s swing voter, penned the majority opinion in Roper v. Simmons. That 5-4 decision struck down the juvenile death penalty as a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s protections against cruel and unusual punishment. In his opinion, Kennedy cited “evolving standards of decency,” noting the “overwhelming weight of international opinion” against putting minors to death. “The United States now stands alone in a world that has turned its face against the juvenile death penalty,” he observed. Scalia’s dissent—joined by Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Associate Justice Clarence Thomas—was withering. “What a mockery today’s opinion makes.... The court thus proclaims itself sole arbiter of our Nation’s moral standards—and in the course of discharging this awesome responsibility purports to take guidance from foreign courts and legislatures.” In the minority’s view, “the basic premise of the Court’s argument—that American law should conform to the laws of the rest of the world—ought to be rejected out of hand.” Scalia and Kennedy traded similar barbs on other occasions. At the root of their long-running skirmish were two fundamental questions: First, should interpretations of the U.S. Constitution be insulated from or open to influence from foreign legal decisions and trends? Second, if the Constitution is opened to foreign influence, what, if any limits should be placed upon that impact? For legal conservatives, the fundamental objection to referencing foreign legal materials is that it injects impurities into what should remain a self-contained constitutional tradition dating back to 1787. Beyond “inviting manipulation,” in Scalia’s view, the selective invocation of foreign legal sources risks transforming the U.S. judiciary into a quasi-legislative branch, allowing it to intrude on congressional competence by creating new law. The Court’s more progressive wing, embodied by Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, is more tolerant of legal cross-pollination. It recognizes that the United States cannot afford to be insulated from the world behind an impermeable cellophane wrapper. Moreover, U.S. judges are already involved in an ongoing transnational legal conversation about, among other things, fundamental standards of human dignity. Finally, progressive jurists find merit in considering how judges and courts in other countries, particularly democracies, have come to their conclusions when grappling with similar cases and dilemmas. In repeatedly siding with Breyer and other members of the Court’s liberal wing, Anthony Kennedy alienated Constitutional originalists. Those conservatives are now ascendant in the Trump administration, and they are determined that Kennedy’s successor not repeat the latter’s apostasy. Jay Sekulow, a member of Trump’s legal team who is helping the president screen potential picks to replace Kennedy, made that clear Wednesday evening. Speaking on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show, he declared that any successful candidate for the Supreme Court must reject any reference to foreign courts. The Republican Party endorsed the same line at its 2016 convention in Cleveland. “The legitimate powers of government are rooted in the consent of the American people,” the GOP platform declared. “Judicial activism that includes reliance on foreign law or unratified treaties undermines American sovereignty.” This conservative determination to insulate U.S. foreign relations law from foreign legal trends is both unrealistic and self-defeating. Whether or not they explicitly acknowledge it, U.S. judges and justices are already exposed to foreign legal cases, and they often interact with their foreign counterparts. It is better to acknowledge these influences honestly than to pretend they do not exist. The more relevant question is the relative weight that judges, including Supreme Court Justices, should give to any foreign legal materials in crafting their opinions and ruling on cases before them. Here, there is room for compromise. Overwhelmingly, U.S. legal scholars of all stripes reject permitting foreign cases to determine the outcome of U.S. cases. The wisest balance is one that retired Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor proposed in a celebrated 2002 address to the American Society of International Law: “Although international law and the law of other nations are rarely binding upon our decisions in U.S. courts,” she reasoned, the “conclusions reached by other countries and by the international community should at times constitute persuasive authority in American courts.” Such an open-minded approach could also help restore U.S. leadership in shaping international law. For much of the past century, the global flow of legal influence was one way—from the United States to the rest of the world. No longer. The Supreme Court, once a historic guide to other nations, is gradually losing its pole position as a primary source of international influence on the high courts of other nations, and its reluctance to engage its foreign counterparts simply accelerates this trend. For as Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg asked in 2008, “If we don’t cite them, why should they look to us?”   As Breyer points out in The Court and the World, the Supreme Court can make modest references to legal proceedings in like-minded nations without sacrificing its sovereignty. Contrary to the Trump administration’s assumptions, American internationalism and American independence are fully compatible. That’s worth bearing in mind as we head into the July Fourth holidays—and as we consider who might be a worthy successor to Anthony Kennedy.

Nigeria’s Minister of Justice and Attorney General Abubakar Malami said that Abuja has reached an agreement with a number of countries, including the United States, France, and the United Kingdom, for the repatriation of $500 million in looted public funds. This follows an earlier agreement with Switzerland for the return of $321 million allegedly stolen by the former military head of state, Sani Abachi. Though the attorney general provided no details, he said that “specific projects” have been identified to which the returned funds will be committed. After the Paris Club write-off in 2005 of an estimated $18 billion in debt, the Nigerian government identified projects to fund with the money freed up by the reduction in debt service, including the expansion of female education in the north. However, it is unclear how long the funding continued. During his April 30 visit to Washington, DC, President Muhammadu Buhari publicly thanked President Donald Trump at their joint press conference for the administration’s assistance in the recovery of looted assets. He referred to the “machinery” the respective attorney generals had put in place for the return of some $500 million of looted assets “siphoned away in banks around the world.” Buhari also praised the U.S. Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Established in 2010, this initiative uses civil forfeiture proceedings to recover looted assets parked in, or laundered through, the United States. Notably, in 2017, the U.S. DOJ filed a civil complaint seeking the recovery of approximately $144 million allegedly laundered in the United States by two Nigerians associated with the former Minister of Petroleum Resources Diezani Alison-Madueke. President Buhari’s electoral victory owed much to his promises to fight against corruption. The next Nigerian general election is in February 2019 and he is planning to run for reelection. However, corruption in Nigeria is structural and addressing it will require decades, if not generations. In the run-up to the elections, Buhari will look to highlight examples where his policy has been successful in his first term.  For more on Nigeria, Matthew Page and I provide an overview of its politics, history, and culture, including the threat of Boko Haram and religious conflicts in our new book, Nigeria: What Everyone Needs to Know, which will be published by Oxford University Press in July.

South Africa has the most extensive legal protection of human rights of any country in Africa, and more than most other parts of the world. Those protections include gay rights. A recent episode provides an example of how the South African constitutional, judicial, and legal system works against discrimination and hate speech. It also demonstrates that there are boundaries to the use of religion as a defense against discriminatory language, even if the extent of such limits are still unknown.  Section nine of South Africa’s constitution guarantees equal rights to all South Africans and outlaws discrimination, including that based on ethnicity, gender, religion, as well as sexual preference. Pursuant to that provision, Parliament passed the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act (PEPUDA) in 2000. In turn, PEPUDA led to the creation of Equality Courts to adjudicate infringements of equality such as unfair discrimination and hate speech. In 2013, the South Africa Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), an independent agency with jurisdiction derived from the constitution that monitors human rights complaints, laid a complaint before an Equality Court. It alleged that a pastor in Cape Town named Oscar Bougardt engaged in hate speech against the LGBT community. The case was ultimately resolved through arbitration. Under its terms, the pastor signed an agreement in which he acknowledged, among other things, that his words were “likely to encourage hatred and cause emotional, psychological and physical harm to members of this [gay and lesbian] community.” He promised to refrain from making such statements in the future.  Nevertheless, he continued to do so. For example, in 2015 following the report that the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria had executed nine men and a boy for homosexuality, Bougardt commented online that, “we need ISIS to come to countries that are homosexual friendly. ISIS please come rid South Africa of the homosexual curse.” In response, the SAHRC asked the Equality Court to hold Bougardt in contempt of court for violating the 2013 agreement. While Bougardt did not deny the statements attributed to him, he did deny having invited ISIS to come to South Africa or that he was encouraging violence against gays and lesbians. Instead, he claimed that he was expressing his constitutionally protected religious views. In May 2018, the Equality Court found that Bougardt violated the agreement he had signed in 2013 and that he had failed to show how freedom of religion protected his comments. When the Court began to consider an appropriate punishment, Bougardt promised to refrain from online comments about gays and lesbians, to apologize to gays and lesbians, and to end his relationship with an American pastor, Steven Anderson, known for his homophobic preaching. The judge ultimately sentenced Bougardt to thirty days of imprisonment, along with five years of suspension. Despite the case against Bougardt, the South African courts have not addressed the broader question of whether religious views can be a defense against charges of discrimination against LGBT persons. However, this Equality Court judgement sets a precedent, increasing the likelihood that such a claim will fail. 

On Sunday, June 3, gunmen attacked a medium-security prison at Minna in Niger state, around one hundred miles from Abuja. Over two hundred inmates reportedly escaped, of whom government sources say thirty have been recaptured. The attack was well organized. The gunmen used four vehicles and ordered residents in the area to go into their houses, presumably to avoid civilian casualties. The gunmen killed one guard who was coming on duty, and the driver of the “okada” (a type of motorcycle that carries passengers) that brought him to the prison.  The jailbreak is getting high-level government attention. Interior Minister Abdurrahman Dambazau and a federal and state delegation have already visited the prison. The minister said, “We have identified some lapses…part of it is that the prison personnel on duty yesterday were inadequate.” Nigeria’s prisons are notoriously over-crowded and badly managed. Jailbreaks are not unusual and are often orchestrated by criminal gangs. Minister Dambazau has said that the federal government will build a new prison with a capacity of three thousand in each of Nigeria’s five “geopolitical” zones. What group carried out the break is unknown, and an official investigation is underway. In many ways, the break recalls similar attacks by Boko Haram on prisons to secure the release of their jailed fellow operatives. However, Governor Abubakar Bello of Niger state says that assertions that Boko Haram was involved is “mere rumor.” He also rejected the suggestion that a criminal gang carried out the operation to secure the release of captives facing the death penalty. The governor said that the prison had not been holding any such inmates. The comptroller general of the prison system, echoing Bello, is also saying that the facility did not hold any suspected Boko Haram operatives.  Thus far, nobody has claimed responsibility, including Boko Haram. For the time being, it looks like the jailbreak was carried out by ordinary criminals rather than Boko Haram.   

Terrorism experts have long feared that parts of the Sahel beyond the control of any government could become nurseries for radical Islamic terrorism that would focus on Western interests and security. This fear at least partly compels the United States to provide limited military assistance to the states in the region, notably Niger, and to sell military equipment to Nigeria. However, lawlessness is not confined to the Sahel, nor is it always associated with Islamist terrorism. There has been a wave of recent killings in the Middle Belt and in northwestern Nigeria, regions where Boko Haram does not routinely operate. The killings are often the result of quarrels over land use, referred to as “herder-farmer conflicts,” cattle rustling and other criminal activity, and reprisal attacks. A recent episode, reported in the New York Times, involved “bandits” killing some forty-five in the village of Gwaska in Kaduna state, located in the Middle Belt. The number of reported deaths was later increased to seventy-one. The “bandits” in that incident have not been further identified. The Kaduna state police commissioner has credibly described the incident as a reprisal attack for earlier vigilante attacks on hideouts in an adjacent national park by residents of the affected village. After the carnage and horror, the bandits were driven away from Gwaska not by the police or other official law-enforcement agencies but by local armed vigilantes. The nearest police station is far away, and the police arrived hours after the attack. In the case of Gwaska, the local community sees to its own protection without reference to government authority. Whether at the national or state level, government authority rarely appears to be exercised in the region, making Gwaska and the surrounding area an “ungoverned space." There is no evidence that the “bandits” were radical Islamists or were otherwise affiliated with political groups. Instead, their activities appear to be entirely local. Nigeria has national elections in February 2019, and incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari is running for reelection. When he was first elected in 2015—the first opposition leader to win a credible election—he campaigned primarily on a platform of restoring security and reining-in ubiquitous corruption. Then, the electorate’s security focus was mostly on Boko Haram. Though that movement has been increasingly contained in the far northeast, violence and insecurity has worsened elsewhere in the Middle Belt and in northern Nigeria. Far more people are killed in those regions now because of “bandits,” reprisal attacks by vigilantes, and quarrels over land use than in the northeast by Boko Haram. Discontent about the state of security in Nigeria could prove to be a significant factor in the upcoming national elections. But the Buhari administration faces challenges with respect to the security services: the police and the army are over-stretched, under-manned, under-funded, and under-trained. Further, they have been credibly accused of a vast array of human rights abuses and are rarely, if ever, held to account. The attack in Gwaska was especially grisly and has attracted widespread attention in other parts of the country, but Gwaska is by no means the only Nigerian village far away from a police station. 

Largely overlooked by the Western media, there is an escalating conflict between Nigeria’s Shia minority, some of whom are organized into the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), and Nigeria’s secular government. The current focus is eight charges of murder brought by Kaduna state against IMN leader Ibrahim el-Zakzaky, whom the government has detained for two years without charge. Complicating the issue is the Iranian government, which has periodically protested el-Zakzaky’s confinement. Beginning in April, there have been daily protests in Abuja and cities in the north against el-Zakzaky’s continued detention. According to the Nigerian media, some of these demonstrations have turned violent and the capital has occasionally been “shut down.” The demonstrations may have provoked the Kaduna state authorities to formally charge el-Zakzaky with murder; if convicted, he could face the death penalty. Federal, not state, authorities, are holding el-Zakzaky in custody, and federal spokesmen have said that he cannot be released until the Kaduna state judicial process is completed. The murder charges stem from an incident in Zaria in December 2015. Federal and military spokesmen say that a Shiite mob led by el-Zakzaky attempted to assassinate Nigeria's chief of army staff Tukur Buratai when they blocked his convoy. Buratai was not killed, but the formal charges against el-Zakzaky accuse him and his followers of killing at least one soldier by name. In the aftermath, the army attacked IMN facilities, killing hundreds of people, including members of el-Zakzaky’s family. El-Zakzaky and his wife were seriously wounded in the attack and subsequently arrested. IMN vociferously denies that there was any assassination attempt, and charges the army with attempting to disrupt a Shia religious event. The Zaria episode is in some ways similar to the 2009 clash between the army and followers of Mohammed Yusuf in Maiduguri, which led to Yusuf’s death and to the emergence of Boko Haram in its present form. But unlike Mohammed Yusuf, el-Zakzaky has not been murdered by the police. Indeed, the Abuja government claims that he and his wife have received excellent medical attention. Further, Mohammed Yusuf advocated violence against the secular state, while el-Zakzaky has not. Advocacy of violence aside, there are striking ideological similarities between IMN and Boko Haram, at least for outside observers. Both see the secular state as evil, both want an Islamic state based on Islamic law, and both want the end to Western influence, including in education. Both also seek the end of northern Nigeria’s traditional political and religious elite. For IMN, the model appears to be the aspirations of the post-revolutionary Iranian Islamic state. Boko Haram’s vision appears more nebulous and less developed, but both try to function as a state-within-state. Despite their similarities, the two groups are anathema to each other. IMN is opposed to Boko Haram’s use of violence and el-Zakzaky has claimed, implausibly, that it is a creation of the “oil-hungry west.” Boko Haram is hostile to any Muslim group that does not share its theology or submit to its authority. As with other Sunni radical movements in the Middle East, Boko Haram is especially hostile to Shias. In the majority-Sunni north of Nigeria, the group likely has more support than do Shias, and the traditional Islamic establishment, which is Sunni, is viscerally hostile to Shias. It is therefore highly unlikely that its members have ever provided any support for the Shia and IMN. The extent of Iranian financial and other support for the Nigerian Shia in general and IMN in particular, however, is unknown. Nobody really knows the size of the Shiite population in Nigeria. International Crisis Group cites an estimate that it makes up between 2 and 3 percent of Nigeria’s population, which would amount to roughly four million Nigerian Shiites. El-Zakzaky has claimed to have followers ranging from a few hundred thousand to three million; it is worth noting that it is by no means true that all Shias are associated with IMN. Whatever IMN’s numbers, it has demonstrated the ability to shut down Abuja, if only for a few days at a time. Were el-Zakzaky to be tried, convicted, and executed—the worst-case scenario—Abuja could very well face the “black swan” of an insurrection.   

When Constable Ken Lam confronted Alek Minassian, suspected of driving through dozens of pedestrians on Yonge Street in Toronto on April 23, he had his gun drawn and sirens blaring. According to the New York Times, the constable successfully arrested Minassian without firing a shot. The constable turned off his siren so he could communicate with the suspect and, through body language, showed he was not in a rush and that he was not afraid, eventually holstering his own firearm. When Minassian claimed to have a gun in his pocket, the constable replied, “I don’t care.” He made it clear to the suspect that he would not be a party to suicide-by-cop. Shortly thereafter, Minassian gave himself up and Lam handcuffed him.  Across Africa, citizens are very often alienated from the police and the security services, many of whom tend to be poorly trained, underpaid, and corrupt. Security service behavior toward civilians is often violent and brutish, resembling the policing of the colonial period. In the United States, suspicion of the police also runs deep, especially in minority communities. The #Blacklivesmatter movement calls attention to the large numbers of police shootings of black men. Police shootings of black Americans in the United States receive widespread media attention in Africa and reinforce Africans' own suspicion and distrust of law enforcement. In Africa and the United States there are regular calls for “better training” of police. Constable Lam’s encounter with Minassian, the suspect of the horrific murder of ten people, shows what police training can accomplish.  In his encounter with the suspect, Constable Lam followed de-escalation procedures for police instituted through regular training by the city Toronto. The relatively new training regimen was put in place partly in response to complaints about the lack of police restraint, especially when dealing with the mentally disturbed and minority communities. The Times reports that Lam would have received one day each year of de-escalation and mental health training, as do all of the city’s police. The training is analyzed in detail by the New York Times.  Lam says he was just doing his job and using his training. Thus far, he has declined requests for interviews. He has been in the police for seven years and is usually involved with managing traffic. There is no evidence in the media that he is part of an elite unit. Nevertheless, as against the horror of the Yonge Street carnage, the Canadian press and social media are praising Lam for his restraint and his courage, and his behavior is widely and favorably contrasted to the lack of restraint shown by police in the United States. The investigation of the Yonge Street carnage has only just begun, but thus far the Canadian authorities are not characterizing it as an act of terrorism.  

Over the past three decades, since the end of the Ferdinand Marcos era in the Philippines, the country has often combined corrupt and semi-authoritarian elected politics with strong cultural and institutional checks on elected leaders. One of the most powerful checks has been the Philippines’ vibrant media and highly active civil society, including NGOs, unions, and many other actors. The Catholic Church, at times, also has pushed back against politicians’ graft and amassing of power. The judiciary, too, often has served as a firewall against allegedly corrupt presidents and lower-ranking politicians. So far, however, these checks on President Rodrigo Duterte’s power have displayed a mixed record. The Catholic Church continues to criticize Duterte’s brutal, extrajudicial war on drugs, but it is unclear whether the Church has the same power to sway Philippine society as it did in the past. Duterte’s administration has co-opted several prominent civil society figures. In other cases, Duterte has used his bully pulpit to personally threaten civil society activists, while his declaration of martial law on the southern island of Mindanao has hampered civil society organizations’ operations in the south. With the media, meanwhile, the Duterte administration has taken a harsh approach, and has had some success in taming news outlets. The Philippine judiciary, however, has not always been as cowed by Duterte. For more on the judiciary’s battles with Duterte, and how Philippine judiciary fits into a global movement of empowered judges, see my new World Politics Review article.