•Alleges Nigeria under siege
Kuni Tyessi
The International Human Rights Commission (IHRC) has described the inability of the federal government to provide Nigerians with basic infrastructure as an infringement on the fundamental human rights of the citizens.
The organisation also stressed the need for government to embrace dialogue as a solution to the security challenges facing the country.
Ambassador at Large and Head of Diplomatic Missions in Nigeria, Dr. Duru Hezekiah, stated this at the commemoration of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on the Occasion of International Human Rights Day in Abuja.
He noted that a baseline study on the ‘Human Rights Impacts and Implications of Mega-Infrastructure Investment’ by the United Nations in 2017, had revealed that lack of infrastructure development by leaders of nations for the benefit of the people was an infringement on human rights.
“However, over the past decade, Nigeria’s infrastructure spending has been less than five per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and much lower than the amount committed by other developing countries.
“With such gap, it has become difficult for the Nigerian government to adequately address the country’s infrastructure needs,” he stated.
This, according to him, in no small measure impedes on the rights of citizens to their basic enjoyment.
Hezekiah added: “We were meant to believe that privatisation of some sectors of government establishment like power sector will guarantee sustainability and availability. I have said this times without number that a country like Nigeria has never celebrated 24 hours of electricity, the oil regime management is shrouded in so much secrecy, the state of roads have never at any time been in the best shape for travelers, the public education sector is at its worst times, lives are being wasted by incessant killings everywhere.
“Many of our best brains are migrating to the western world because of insecurity and hardship. Many of our girls are being used as sex toys in foreign lands because no hope for them in their father’s land. When the chips are down, they come back and add to our suffering.”
He called on the Nigerian government and by extension African leaders to prioritise the issue of electricity, roads, internet penetration and support for micro, small and medium scale enterprises for the people. He noted that it was not a privilege, but rights of the people.
Also speaking, a human rights lawyer and executive director of Citizens Advocacy for Social and Economic Rights (CASER), Frank Tietie, observed that there was disparity between the provisions of the law as to the kind of human rights Nigerians should enjoy and what they actually enjoy.
According to him, “Nigerians are deprived largely of the basic human rights especially with regards to the right to life occasioned by insecurity situation in most parts of north.”
Alleging that the country was under siege, the legal practitioner maintained that the issue of human rights violation in the country was more systemic than administrative.
Tieite who added that successive administrations were yet to do much to improve human rights violations in Nigeria, said: “I must say, and particularly that this administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has been quite unfortunate to be characterised by a state of insecurity to which witnessed devaluation, degradation and erosion of the rights of Nigerians, particularly the right to life.”
