By Newsmata
As Nigeria Tuesday December 10 joined the global community to mark the 2024 Human Rights Day, with the theme, ‘Our Rights, Our Future, Right Now’, the country’s National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has painted a grievous picture of human rights abuses in the country disclosing that in 2023, a staggering over two million complaints were received, while in November 2024 alone, over 300, 000 cases were reported. The Human Rights Day, which started 76 years ago, is celebrated every December 10.
Newsmata reports that these disturbing statistics were reeled out by Hilary Ogbonna, a senior human rights adviser at the NHRC when he appeared on Arise News Morning Show on Tuesday, where he spoke on the significance of the celebration, and how Nigeria had fared in upholding the human rights of Nigerians and creating awareness of such rights.
Projecting that the Commission might be getting up to 10,000 complaints daily across the country, Ogbonna lamented the paucity of funds in carrying out investigations and human rights education across the country and in many institutions. He noted that Nigeria, just as other developing nations, faced the crisis of human rights education and that’s why people were not able to claim their rights.
Contrary to public perception, Ogbonna insisted that the Commission had really been working and achieved a lot especially in terms of spreading its thin resources across the states and using its investigative powers to hold law enforcement agents to account. According to him, “We just concluded an 18-month investigation of the Nigerian Armed Forces. So, the Commission is really working, and we publish every month human rights situation in Nigeria as a dashboard. That is a lot of work. In November alone, we had over 300, 000 human rights violations reported to our offices across the 36 states and the FCT 9Federal Capital Territory). But we need to do more.
“They say the biggest room in the world is the room for improvement. We need to get more resources, more financial resources. In 2010, the Commission’s establishment Act was amended giving the Commission a first line charge. So, we have a first line charge to the consolidated revenue fund of the federation. But that consolidated revenue fund charge just gives the commission about N4bn annually. It’s there on the website; we are quite transparent about our resources.
“So, last year, we had a little above 2,000,000,000 human rights complaints to investigate. So, just assume that we have to spend N5,000 in investigating each of these human rights violations, it may well mean we may not be able to pay salaries of over 800 staff. But rather than complain, the commission continues to do its work, attracting funding from donors. Donors are like the live wires of the commission. And during the administration of Mohammadu Buhari, the commission received a presidential grant of an additional N1bn. So, we used to have N4bn annually. So, you can imagine. But we made a very strong case, and that increased the budget.
“But we still need more resources especially at state level where the bulk of the complaints come from. And as I speak to you, I can assure you that based on trajectories that we have had in other months, today alone, on daily basis, we may be getting up to like 10,000 complaints across the country. So, you need resources to investigate these, you need resources to train people, you need resources to do human rights education”.
While wishing for a drastic reduction in human rights violations due to human rights education, Ogbonna lamented that this is capital-intensive. He said “Our human rights education means money, deployment of resources, educational materials, across the country. It also means going to police colleges to train police officers; it means working with the Nigerian armed forces. It means working with NGOs, training community volunteers as we have them now. All of these are capital intensive, but the commission is not resting on its oars. We continue to work daily, and we have some of the most hard-working staff who investigate human rights violations, sometimes at a very huge cost on their lives and that of their family members”.
Ogbonna however contended that human rights education should not be for citizens alone, but for the violators of human rights. He said “just as we talk about human rights education for citizens, it’s also good to talk about human rights education for government institutions, for law enforcement because it’s not just one thing to tell citizens to know your right, how about the violators? If they know about human rights, there is a likelihood that they are not going to violate the rights of citizens. So, it’s a two-way traffic.
“Today is one of those days in the year when we call attention to issues on human rights education, issues on human rights responsibility; but above all, we need to set structures at national, states, local governments levels, community level, ward level for citizens to understand their rights and it is only when you understand your rights, when you have that education to understand your right. Education is about dignity that is why a university in Southeast Nigeria said that ignorance brings down the dignity of man, but education restores man’s dignity”.
On the symbolism of the 2024 celebration, Ogbonna said “today is very significant in the sense that it is a day we call for action in the human rights community, knowing that in spite of the universal declaration of human rights, in spite of national constitutions, international treaties, international bill of right, human right is not observed in many countries. Human right is not respected.
“But today also gives us the opportunity to celebrate the little gains that have been made, especially in civil and political rights, in upholding children’s rights, in freedom of expression and the media. We know that in terms of economic, social and cultural rights, we are still a very long way down the road. In terms of international peace and security, we are still very far away from the dreams that we had in 1948, or the dreams we had in 1945 when the Second World War ended.
“But by and large, today calls for reflection; it also calls for some introspection as to the future. And the theme for this year is very apt because it looks at today, and it also looks at the future. The transformative nature of human rights to place humanity as a special being, which is what human rights is, the dignity and the quality of all persons, how do we achieve that? The theme for today gives us that direction”.