In 2000 former President Olusegun Obasanjo inaugurated the Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission (HRVIC), popularly called the Oputa Panel, after its Chairman. The commission was mandated to investigate cases of human rights abuses from January 1966 to June 1998 and to recommend ways that would bring about healing and national reconciliation. This paper examines the interplay of power, politics and the consequent contestation that characterized the commission. In doing so it raises several questions: What particular purpose or interest was the exercise primed to serve? What were the underlying factors that underpinned this interplay? Why did the entire exercise generate so much public contestation against the conduct of the proceedings? And what are its implications for understanding the power and power limitations of the actors involved? For instance, the impunity with which some major actors, especially the generals and some past military dictators, refused to honour the invitation of the commission to appear before it, coupled with the blatant “denials and arrogance [of those who appeared] that smacked of remorselessness (Aaron, 2005), generated public outcry and contestation across the country. Consequently, critics argued that the constitutional inadequacies of the commission were exploited by the powerful in order to escape accounting of their past misdeeds. Another conclusion was that constitutional and legal loopholes were deliberately embedded in the commission to ensure that some powerful interests, who provided political backing for Obasanjo’s presidential ambition, were not publicly embarrassed or offended. It was against this backdrop of public outrage and contestation that the government decided not to make the report of the commission public.
By way of conclusion, the paper notes that Nigeria’ truth and reconciliation exercise did have important implications for understanding power, politics and power limitations of actors, including the rulers and the led.
