South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Nigeria’s Oputa Panel: Comparison, Lessons and the Future of Truth Commissions in Africa

This chapter is a comparative analysis of two contrasting transitional justice processes in Nigeria and South Africa. While the latter’s transition from apartheid is lauded as a success story, the former’s transition from military rule was less successful. Politically, the two countries share challenges of failing to manage various differences such as racial, religious, sectarian, linguistic, tribal, ethnic and geographical differences, as the case may be, as part of the nation-building projects. Due to its challenging transition, Nigeria is stuck in a paradigm of war. The chapter argues that the same problem also manifests in South Africa, albeit via different symptoms such as xenophobia, tribalism, racisms, ethnicity, sexism, ageism and many other negative -isms. This chapter uses two units of analysis, namely, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (SA TRC) and Nigerian Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission (Oputa Panel). The purpose of this chapter is fourfold: first, to provide the background to the establishment of the two transitional justice mechanisms; second, to use the SA TRC to evaluate the Oputa Panel; third, to account for the failure of the Oputa Panel; and lastly, to draw lessons for transitional justice in Africa in general and Nigeria specifically.