On the occasion of World’s Human Rights Day, December 10, Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre has launched its 2022 Nigeria Annual Human Rights Report. At the launch, PLAC’s Executive Director, Clement Nwankwo raised concern that Nigeria is off course and drifting away from its responsibilities and respect for human rights as enshrined in the Constitution and international treaty obligations.
According to PLAC, not only has the country failed to protect a vast majority of its citizens from the erosion of their basic and fundamental rights, the government was often found complicit in actions that deny rather than enhance those rights.
One key finding made in the report is that Nigeria is going through serious economic difficulties which formed the backdrop, or often provided the impetus for many of the rights violations that happen in the country. In the midst of severe economic difficulties, the ideal conditions for meeting the most basic of rights are non-existent. The fact that the country is at the same time going through a political transition amid plunging revenues makes the situation even more precarious.
The result has been a worsening of social tensions, a further escalation of a long-simmering grazing conflict that follows ethnic and religious fault lines, leading to the emergence of insurgent and secessionist groups in different parts of the country. It is against this background that much of the violations of human rights unfolded in Nigeria in 2022.
The biggest dangers to the fundamental rights of Nigerians have come in the forms of threats to life, personal liberty, human dignity, the rights to private property and family life. These have come mostly from a failure of the State to ensure the welfare of its citizens, which is one of the fundamental objectives of government.
These rights have been outrageously violated during the period under review in the incidents of kidnapping for ransom, heinous killings, various communal conflicts, insurgencies and secessionist movements. These violations, by mostly non-state actors, take place largely because the State has failed the citizens through its inability to guarantee as well as maintain law and order.
PLAC recommended a change in attitude where the government sees itself as the prime defender of human rights rather than their prime violator. This it can do be adhering to the rule of law in all its conduct and avoiding the current appearance of selective application.
The state of the economy will inevitably affect the state of human rights. The government needs to improve its economic management, given that the welfare of the people is the primary responsibility of government. PLAC stated that there is an urgent need to tackle the grazing conflict sweeping the country as it is directly implicated in food shortages and their rising costs.
According to PLAC, government should redouble efforts to tackle pervasive insecurity in the country and reassert its control over the country’s territory, the report said. PLAC called on the authorities to launch investigations into allegations that some members of the security forces are showing partisanship to some sides in the grazing conflict, to nip such practices in bud, if true, and boost the citizens’ trust in the armed forces.
PLAC also called on the government to take steps to ensure that States that make laws that are in violation of the Constitution are called to order and asked to reverse course, given that the Federal Government is the custodian of our constitutional order, with the president and the governors swearing an oath to abide by the Constitution.
Read the report here: https://bit.ly/3FDK4ym