Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC) organised a Consultative Meeting on Strategy for Engaging with the National Assembly Committees on Human Rights on 30th and 31st October 2023 in Abuja, with support from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The meeting was a platform for civil society organisations (CSOs) working on human rights to meet with the Human Rights Committees in the 10th National Assembly. Chairman of the House of Representatives Human Rights Committee, Rep. Abiola Peter Makinde and the Deputy Chairman, Rep. Mudashiru Lukman Alani were present at the meeting.
Executive Director of PLAC, Clement Nwankwo, delivered the welcome remarks. He underscored the delicate nature of the overall human rights situation in the country, highlighting the crucial role of the civil society in raising awareness and addressing human rights concerns. An endeavor he described as necessitating close partnership between civil society and the National Assembly Human Rights Committees to mitigate the worsening human rights conditions in the nation. Chairman of the House of Representatives Human Rights Committee, Rep. Abiola Peter Makinde in his goodwill message, expressed his intention to gather valuable insight from the meeting, on prevailing human rights concerns and devise effective strategies to tackle these them.
The keynote presentation at the meeting was delivered by Chinonye Obiagwu, SAN, Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association Human Rights Institute (NBA-HRI) and Executive Director, Legal Defence and Assistance Project (LEDAP) on the topic, ‘Overview of the Human Rights Situation & Challenges to Addressing Human Rights Violations in Nigeria’. On the second day of the meeting, Ogechi Ogu, Deputy Director at Prisoners’ Rehabilitation and Welfare
Action (PRAWA) delivered a presentation ‘CSO Perspective: Collaborative Efforts for Improved Human Rights Protection’.
Rep. Makinde expressed his Committee’s commitment to promoting human rights protection, using the National Action Plan on Promoting and Protecting Human Rights as its major focus, in collaboration with CSOs and other human rights stakeholders.
Conversations at the meeting culminated in the development of a CSO-Legislative engagement strategy by the participants to identify and tackle human rights violations.