Amnesty International released a report today on forced evictions in the Badia East community of Lagos, Nigeria. In February 2013, the Lagos state government, with the support of heavily armed police, demolished at least 266 structures that served as homes and businesses. The demolitions were presumed to affect 1,933 tenement households and 319 residential structure owners. From the report
The residents of Badia East who were forcibly evicted were amongst the beneficiaries of a World Bank funded project intended to increase access to basic services for the wider Badia community. Following the forced eviction, the World Bank intervened with the Lagos state government, which agreed – in April 2013 – to provide the affected people with compensation under a Resettlement Action Plan (henceforth called a ‘RAP’)….
This report documents the flawed process of preparing a RAP and the Lagos state government’s failure to adequately compensate affected people in line with Nigeria’s international human rights obligations, in particular the obligation to guarantee the right to an effective remedy. The report also documents the World Bank’s failure to adequately ensure that a RAP it approved – and the process by which it was prepared – was consistent with international human rights standards and the World Bank policy on involuntary resettlement.
Read the full report here.
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