Amnesty International started working on Nigeria in June 1967 and has been working on Nigeria since then through its international secretariat and partners in country. In 2015, Amnesty International Nigeria was established in Abuja, as a national office of Amnesty International. This was as a result of the implementation of a new policy of moving closer to the ground. The national office is a registered Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) under the Nigerian Law.
In its four years existence in Nigeria, Amnesty International Nigeria has carried out extensive research and campaigning work in Nigeria covering various human rights issues including forced evictions in Lagos, Abuja, Kaduna, Rivers and Imo states; police brutality; criminal justice review; abolition of the death penalty human rights violations in the north-east of Nigeria; women’s human rights; support for human rights defenders and activists; freedom of expression; and enforcement of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR).
Amnesty International hopes to see a world in which every person enjoys all of the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments. For Amnesty International, no government is beyond scrutiny and no situation is beyond hope.