Nigeria’s efforts at ensuring human rights is beset with a variety of problems. They range from a poverty of noble values among politicians, contradictions in geo-political, economic and social mix, intellectual fraud of the elite who, rather than be the torch-bearers, opt for brigandage to stoke social tension.
Correspondent SAM NWOKORO reviews Nigeria’s human rights efforts and the challenges from the end of the civil war, through military dictatorship, to the current democratic dispensation.
Of all United Nations’ conventions and protocols, that on human rights is the only one that cuts across national cultures, politics, ideology, religion, and value preferences. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 10, 1948 in Paris.
The declaration arose directly from the experiences of World War II and “represents the first global expression of rights to which one is inherently entitled,” as the framers put it.
UN objective
UN Resolution 217 A (111) sets out the protection of fundamental humans rights “as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations”.
These include the right to life, freedom of speech, religion, association, education, good governance, protection by the state in which you are born or domiciled as a law abiding citizen.
The UN spelt out the rights humanity is entitled to so that each one can achieve fulfil the purpose for which God created and placed him or her on the earth.
There are broad classifications such as claim to rights, liberty rights, natural and legal rights as well as negative and positive rights. Embedded in these broad categories are the operative elements which could be economic, social, and cultural rights.
With the lessons learnt from the two World Wars, the UN expects all nation states to run their systems in a manner that enables citizens to obtain these rights, irrespective of creed, colour, language, nativity, or class.
How Africa has enabled its half a billion population to attain these rights is an unsettled issue.
Why Africa’s human rights record is poor
Nigeria, like most African countries, has had a long history of rights abuse. Many researchers found out that this stems from the long military incursion into civilian life. This retarded dialogue and civilian participation in the formulation of programmes and policies by military dictators who ruled most countries in Africa.
They frustrated inclusive dialogue and decision-making, democratic enterprise, and accountability; which bred grudging followership, civil unrest, and violation of human rights.
After most African nations gained political independence in the 1950s and 1960s, leaders who took over from the colonialists were local politicians who had helped force out the foreign masters.
They saw political office as the spoils of anti-colonial struggle. Political structures erected after the departure of the colonisers were ramshackle and did not include all ethnic groups. The result in wars and political crises that took the better part of many African nations up to the 1990s.
If there was anything like a Bill Of Rights enunciated by the UN, it was not in the reckoning of civilian leaders or military autocrats in countries such as Uganda, South Africa, Tanzania, Angola, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Central African Republic, Rwanda, Sudan, Kenya, Somalia, Equatorial Guinea, and Sierra Leone.
Therefore, it is not difficult to decipher why African nations are the most notorious in failing UN rights rankings every year.
Nigeria’s human rights in the 1970s
Nigeria was colonised by Britain from 1900 to 1960. The first general election, after independence was a contest for power among the major actors that talked Britain out of the country and did not produce a government which ensured democracy and the rule of law.
Sectionalism and corruption crept into Nigerian politics and the First Republic was overthrown in a military putsch in February 1966 which polarised the armed forces, leading to another coup d’etat in July 1966 which was interpreted, rightly or wrongly, as a counter coup against military officers from the South East.
The civil war, which began in July 1967, arose from the massacre of innocent civilians in the North and inaugurated one of the most horrible state-orchestrated rights violations and mass murder of defenceless women and children.
Since the end of the war in January 1970, leadership configuration at the centre has helped to perpetuate rights violation.
Since then, there had been no looking back by subsequent Nigerian governments in taking Nigerians’ fundamental rights for granted in all their policy actions and formulations.
University students rioted in 1978 and demanded the sack of then Education Minister, Ahmadu Ali, the focus of their aggression.
That riot in part hastened the convocation of the Constituent Assembly in 1978 by the then Head of State, Olusegun Obasanjo, which fashioned the 1979 Constitution that ushered in the presidency of Shehu Shagari.
Femi Falana, a student’s union leader at the time, said “Obasanjo was the chief architect of human rights violations in Nigeria. He introduced it, and subsequent military leaders copied from him.”
Other landmark rights violations under the Obasanjo regime (1976 to 1979) was the burning down of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti’s Kalakuta Republic in Lagos, which was criticised at home and abroad.
Nigeria’s judiciary also suffered its worst kind of abuse during the military era. It was easy for the military ruler to preempt a court case before verdict was delivered.
Military regimes and rights abuses
Rights abuses were exacerbated under military regimes that reigned between 1985 and 1999.
Herbert Ekwekwe wrote in his book, African and Political Development Evolutionary Process, that the Muhammadu Buhari junta between 1984 and August 1985 “was too rigid and uncompromising in its attitude to issues of national significance.
“No sooner did Buhari and Idiagbon seize government than the infamous Decree 4 was promulgated by them. And they came down hard on the Nigerian press, making the report of truth a serious offence, jailing two famous Nigerian journalists, Tunde Thompson and Nduka Irabor for falling foul of the law because they published a scoop about Ambassadorial postings into Nigeria’s diplomatic missions.
“Again Decree 2 made it possible for his Deputy, Tunde Idiagbon, to detain anybody, whether a citizen or foreigner. The court ousted the powers of the courts to adjudicate on any matter regarding anyone detained under that decree.
“Buhari was also noted to have utilised excessive force in handling drug peddlers caught, as he issued death penalties to them in what political commentators believed should not have attracted death sentence.
“Still was the fate of several of these suspects in laws that resembled those of Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations.”
Nairaland, an online publication, also recalled that “the tactics of the Buhari/Idiagbon regime became too harsh for the survival of the people, with arbitrary creation of decrees to lead the regime, but promulgated to lure the Nigerian public into playing into the waiting hands of the regime.
“Victims who became preys to these draconian decrees were mostly detained and made to remain in prison for as many years as Buhari and Idiagbon pleased.”
Ibrahim Babangida who overthrew Buhari in August 1985 then perpetrated human rights abuses that surpassed those of previous regimes.
He had cited Buhari’s poor human rights record as his motive for taking over the government. He mesmerised Nigerians by some deceptive human rights posturing – releasing corrupt politicians jailed by Buhari and others detained in various prisons nationwide.
But Babangida began to show his true face about six months into his tenure. His rights abuses included
• Disenfranchisement of a large segment of the populace during his interminable transition programmes, which commenced from 1986, during which period many politicians were banned from participating in elections.
• Enactment of more reactive decrees, such as that for the forfeiture of personal assets by politicians and their associates.
• Attack against the press, highlighted by his proscription of Newswatch magazine in 1986.
• Disappearance and torture of journalists
• Introduction of austerity measures without consideration for public opinion.
Remedy of rights abuses
Nigeria’s profile today borrows largely from the latest UN mandate for countries to set up human rights institutions. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) was established in Nigeria in 2010.
The NHRC has regional offices in the six zones in the country and its national secretariat in Abuja.
It seeks to create an enabling environment for the promotion, protection and enforcement of human rights. It also provides awareness for public enlightenment, research and dialogue in order to raise awareness on human rights.
Its focus areas of service are the police, healthcare services, emergency services, non-governmental organisations, and education.
The NHRC is a vehicle through which the government has shown the good side of Nigeria as a member of the UN that adheres to its conventions.
A lawyer, UIleyo, said the NHRC “has in recent time become the eye through which the outside world monitors Nigeria’s democratic practices.”
Laws made through collaboration between the NHRC and civil society organisations include the Child Rights Act, Freedom of Information Act, Anti-gay Act. The NHRC has also collaborated with law enforcement agencies to train the police on human rights observance.
Resolve of NHRC
At a meeting in Port Harcourt in April this year, the NHRC considered the report of the “technical working group” on independent review of evidence of gross violations of rights to participate in government, public service, and fair trial through the election petition process between 2007 and 2011 (also known as the End Electoral Impunity Project).
It adopted the report and agreed to forward it to the federal and state attorneys general with a list of persons indicted recommendation for their prosecution.
The report proposed the establishment of a unit in the NHRC to investigate and report on electoral impunities, right of citizens to participate in elections, and monitor election-related crimes and ensure prosecution of culprits.
The NHRC plans to collaborate with the National Judicial Institute (NJI) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to sensitise the judiciary on preventing electoral impunity. A rapporteur will be responsible for this task.
It also considered a draft panel into the Apo killings of September 20, 2014, condemned escalating violence in their country, the abduction of schoolgirls and women by Boko Haram, and pledged genuine human rights coverage for victims.
For much part of its life, Nigeria has been governed by either pure military dictators or quasi-military leaders who see their subjects as conquered people rather than those to govern with good conscience.
NHRC National Chairman, Chidi Odinkalu, said: “We are conscious of this fact and that is why we are redoubling efforts to make the world see that Nigeria is not a lawless state because of the misbehaviour of Boko Haram insurgents.
“It is a global problem, yet we are not allowing it to discourage us. We have been prompt in responding to people’s rights petitions.
“Only recently, for the first time in the history of this country, top military officers were dragged before the rights tribunal to explain their role in the massacre of some people in Apo.
“That had not taken place in the country before. We have set that precedent to tell the world that we are not just a sit-down body, but really committed in enforcing fundamental rights in the country, notwithstanding our security challenges.”
