independent race and refugee news network


	Topics

Government policy

Policing and criminal justice system

Violence and harassment

Asylum seekers and refugees

Education

Media

Employment

Extreme-Right politics

Features

Statistics and definitions

Quiz

Schools against deportations

Reclaiming the struggle

Far-Right in Europe

Nigerian High Commission accused of targeting exiles

By Liz Fekete

1 October 1996

A BBC documentary broadcast in the 'Black Britain' series claims that Nigerian intelligence agents are using the London Nigerian High Commission to spy on exiled members of its democratic opposition and that British private security firms have been hired to follow and report on the movement of dissidents.

The claims, denied by the High Commission, are backed up by sources in the Metropolitan Police. In 1995, the FBI warned London special branch that hit men from the Nigerian security services were going to eliminate three Nigerian exiles in the UK. Dissidents have reported several incidents of alleged harassment. Nobel prize winning author Wole Soyinka says that he was tailed in one incident. Another activist, John Filani of the Nigerian Democratic Movement (NDM), said he received telephone death threats in June. A demonstration outside the Commonwealth Secretariat which he organised was photographed and one of the photographers told him 'You are playing with your life.'

Observer 18.8.96

privacy | using our content | advertising | support us