The Transformative Moment: Human Rights Practices, NGOs, and State Power in Authoritarian Lagos, 1987-1998.

This thesis examines human rights practices in Lagos, Nigeria, during an era of military dictatorships in the late twentieth century. The period witnessed the rise of a human rights movement in Lagos through non-governmental organizations (NGOs), beginning with the Civil Liberties Organization in October 1987. From that year through the 1990s, human rights practices of both state and non-state actors in the city changed in complex ways. This study argues that the rise of this NGO movement transformed such practices in Lagos by introducing paradigms of confrontation and collaboration, based on strategies of resistance, repression, and cooperation. Mainly utilizing primary source material, this paper aids a better understanding of human rights practices in the city and the impact of NGOs on these practices. It thus engages and goes beyond scholarly and popular discourses that foreign influence or state control occasioned such practices. It tells a narrative of how strategic, pragmatic, and even expedient considerations prompted this Lagos-based movement and the government to mostly confront, but occasionally collaborate on issues of human rights in the city.Master of Art