{"id":2568,"date":"2022-03-25T12:16:34","date_gmt":"2022-03-25T12:16:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/?p=2568"},"modified":"2022-03-25T13:18:34","modified_gmt":"2022-03-25T13:18:34","slug":"house-of-reps-human-rights-committee-set-to-tackle-rights-violations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/house-of-reps-human-rights-committee-set-to-tackle-rights-violations\/","title":{"rendered":"House of Reps Human Rights Committee Set to Tackle Rights Violations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The House of Representatives Committee on Human Rights held a Capacity Development Retreat for its members in Abuja on Monday, 21st<\/sup> March 2022. It was organised in collaboration with Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC) with support from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The retreat was aimed at developing a mechanism to respond to human rights issues affecting Nigerians. At the retreat, keynote presentations on the \u2018Current Context and State of Human Rights Protection in Nigeria\u2019 were delivered by Human Rights lawyer and activist, Femi Falana, SAN and the Executive Secretary of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Anthony Ojukwu, SAN. Select institutions and agencies of government and civil society organisations were also present at the retreat. They contributed to conversations on improving legislative response to human rights protection in Nigeria. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the retreat, it was resolved that the\nCommittee will develop a mechanism for receiving complaints of human rights\nviolations from the public. The Committee pledged a follow-up on these\ncomplaints using its legislative powers of oversight of the Executive arm of\ngovernment. The Committee also agreed to hold regular consultation with human\nrights organisations and stakeholders, with a view to curbing violations of\nhuman rights in the country. It was also resolved that a website will be setup  by the Committee, where citizens can submit petitions\nof human rights abuse and where civil society organisations can submit reports\non the state of human rights in the country. PLAC was given the responsibility\nto help create the website. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Welcoming legislators and participants to the\nretreat, Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Human Rights,\nHon. John Dyegh stated the Committee\u2019s commitment to building capacity to deal\nwith human rights violations in Nigeria by partnering with the NHRC, the\nNational Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), other\ngovernment agencies, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and other partners\nworking on human rights issues. He also highlighted some of the Committee\u2019s\nefforts to address rights abuses, which include ensuring human rights training\nfor security agencies, introduction of several bills in the House, among\nothers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his opening remarks at the retreat,\nExecutive Director of PLAC, Clement Nwankwo noted that several cases of human\nrights violations perpetrated by government agencies, particularly arbitrary\narrest and detention of individuals, stem from abuse of power by public\nofficials for personal reasons. He therefore stressed the need for agencies of\ngovernment to understand that their service is to the State and not to\nindividuals who occupy positions of authority. He called on the Committee to\nwork with government agencies to reduce the incidence of human rights\nviolations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his presentation, rights activist, Femi\nFalana, stated that Nigeria has one of the best human rights regimes in terms\nof laws enacted to improve human rights protection in the country. He however,\nexplained that the enforcement of these laws is very poor. He cited several\nprovisions of law that are breached on a regular basis, through acts such as\nsubjecting criminal suspects to torture and making statements without legal\nadvice  or representation, rejection of\ngunshot victims by health care providers, discrimination against persons with\ndisabilities, among others. He therefore enjoined members of the Committee to\nmonitor the enforcement of these laws by relevant government agencies and also\nensure appropriation of funds to agencies such as NHRC, Legal Aid Council,\nNational Orientation Agency and others, to enable them deliver services for the\nprotection of human rights. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Executive Secretary of NHRC, Anthony Ojukwu\nspeaking at the retreat, highlighted some of the efforts of his Commission\ntowards the protection of human rights. Among these is the work of the\nCommission to mainstream human rights protection by security agents on the\nfrontline in insurgency operations, which he stated, has resulted in\nsignificant improvement in the performance of the military. Also, NHRC has\nassisted in the institutionalisation of \u2018Human Rights Desks\u2019 in all military\noffices, ensuring that boko haram detainees are tried, among other efforts. He also stated that\nthe NHRC has an office in every State of the Federation and engages with the\ngovernment, the legislature, civil society and citizens at that level to deal\nwith human rights issues. He\nenjoined the Human Rights Committee of the House of Representatives to look\ninto the condition of detention centres and facilities for persons with mental\nhealth conditions, in its efforts to curb abuse of rights.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The retreat kicks off a citizens\u2019 driven\nproject by PLAC to address human rights violations in Nigeria from a\nlegislative perspective, where citizens will be enjoined to submit petitions to\nthe Human Rights Committees of the Senate and House of Representatives on human\nrights abuses experienced or witnessed by them. In addition, PLAC will issue \u2018call-to-action\u2019 notices over identified\ncases of human rights abuse, encouraging citizens to send letters to the\nCommittees, to seek their intervention through enforcement of their oversight\npowers on violating authorities. Citizens may also contact the violating authorities\nto protest these abuses and call for a stop to them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

PLAC is committed to working with the Human\nRights Committees of the National Assembly to develop an effective mechanism\nfor responding to human rights petitions and proffer remedies to victims who\nsuffer violation of their rights. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The House of Representatives Committee on Human Rights held a Capacity Development Retreat for its members in Abuja on Monday, 21st March 2022. It was organised in collaboration with Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC) with support from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The retreat was aimed at developing a mechanism to respond to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2568"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2575,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2568\/revisions\/2575"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}