HUMAN RIGHTS IN NIGERIA

HUMAN RIGHTS IN NIGERIA

Human rights are rights one has because one is a human being (person); or as the Covenants put it, rights that “derive from the inherent dignity of the human person.” The crucial ideas that need to be explicated at the level of conceptions are rights, persons, and (inherent) human dignity; once this is done, it is relatively easy, even if still controversial, to develop a list” Human rights are rights, not benefits, duties, privileges, or some other perhaps related practice. Rights in turn are special entitlements of persons[1]

The nature of human rights is complicated even beyond the controversy over their source or who may hold them. A critical debate continues over what is meant by human rights.

In Nigeria, Human Rights have gradually developed through the years, it can be seen as corruption, but this corruption is from the highest Authority to the lowest. Corruption in Nigeria can be classified as a classic case of systemic corruption. Corrupt practices transcend nearly every stratum of Nigerian society.[2] The systemic aspect is evident from the fact that corruption pervades the entire society and has become as routinised and accepted as a means of conducting everyday transactions that many people have few practical alternatives to dealing with corrupt officials.

There are lots of cases that have shown the ineffectiveness of human right law in the Nigerian Constitution, such cases are explained below:

1. Nigeria prison: The Right to dignity of prisoners:

Prisoners face humiliation everyday, what seems not clear is the fact that, prison official do use physical punishment on prisoners, according to the constitution this is not part of prison practice but the believe is that punishment is a way to achieve corrections. Compared to few African countries or European countries, Prisoners in Nigerian prison have no right, even though the constitution state that prisoners have rights to appeal(depending on the judgment given by the judge) and so on… it didn’t include the Regulations on the rights of the disabled prisoners.

There is no provision on the rights of able or disabled prisoners in the Nigeria Constitution thus the only laws applicable to the rights of disabled prisoners are the international instruments which Nigeria has acceded to.

1. Death Penalty and Moratorium on executions:

The violation of a person legal rights start from the arrest process, where by the police use torture to extract confession in the investigation, of which majority of death row have been judged through this confession. Some prisoners had no lawyer and others complain that the lawyer didn’t argue that case well, the court which is meant to appoint lawyers in capital cases when the accused cannot afford one, could not because of lack of funds.

Death penalty in Nigeria is not a clean and justified one, most times innocent people die for nothing, due to lack of strong and productive judiciary. Some judges just give death penalty for any crime that could have just be imprisoned. Section 33(1) of the Nigerian Constitution allows for judicial executions, there are no Constitutional provisions making the death penalty mandatory for specific crimes. However, weaknesses in the Nigerian criminal justice system may lead to breaches of international human rights law and standards. Suspects in capital cases and death row prisoners are regularly denied their right to a fair trial and an impartial appeal process.

1. Enforced Disappearances:

An enforced disappearance is the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State (or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State), followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law Enforced disappearances are crimes under international law. Enforced disappearances are a violation of Nigeria’s constitutional and international human rights obligations, including the right to security and dignity of person; the right not to be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; the right to humane conditions of detention; the right to a legal personality; right to a fair trial; and when the disappeared person is killed, the right to life.”[3]

These cases are recognized by the UN and Amnesty International and have been required from the Nigerian authority to make amends.

 

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[1] Jack Donnelly.  Human Rights and Human Dignity: An Analytic Critique of Non-Western Conceptions of Human Rights.  The American Political Science Review, Vol. 76, No. 2, pp. 304

[2] S Ekwowusi ‘Curbing Corruption in Nigeria’ THIS DAY, 15 October 2000, quoted in NA Goodling ‘Nigeria’s Crisis of Corruption – Can the U.N. Global Programme hope to resolve this Dilemma?’ (2003) 36 Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law 1999.

[3] Amnesty International. Nigeria: Enforced Disappearances in Port Harcourt. AI Index: AFR 44/012/2009, 16 April 2009.

by  ADESEYE ADENIKE