The Nigerian government is considering giving the country's human rights panel power to grant an amnesty to witnesses, Justice Minister Bola Ige has said, according to a Monday newspaper.
"With regards to the issue of amnesty ... it is a matter that is positively being looked into. The point is being considered very seriously," Ige told the newspaper This Day.
Former Supreme Court judge Justice Chukwufidu Oputa, the chairman of the panel set up by President Olusegun Obasanjo, last week urged the government to grant the commission amnesty powers.
The panel has been charged with investigating rights abuses in Nigeria from the first military coup in 1966 to the return to civilian rule last year.
Oputa told reporters that South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, set up to investigate wrongs done during the apartheid era, was able to get to the truth because it had the power to grant amnesties to witnesses.
"Without that clause it will be extremely difficult for people to come and own up," Oputa said.
The panel began public hearings in Abuja in October and concluded five weeks of hearings in Lagos at the weekend. It is to resume hearings in the southeastern city of Port Harcourt in January.
Oputa said last week he was disappointed with many of the statements made to the panel so far because few of the accused officials had admitted to any wrongdoing -- LAGOS (AFP)
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