Absence of Infrastructure, Violation of Citizens’ Rights, Int’l Rights Group Tells FG

Kuni Tyessi in Abuja

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 reveals that lack of infrastructure development by leaders of nations for the enjoyment of the people is an infringement on human rights. 

“However, over the past decade, Nigeria’s infrastructure spending has been less than five per cent of 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 prioritize the issue of electricity, roads, internet penetration and Micro Small and Medium Enterprises for the people, noting that it is 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 is 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. 

Noting that the country is currently under siege, the legal practitioner maintained that the issue of human rights violation in the country is more systemic than administrative. 

Tieite who added that successive administrations have not done much to improve the human rights violations in Nigeria, said :”I must say, and particularly that this administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has been quite unfortunate to be characterized by  a state of insecurity to which witnessed devaluation, the degradation, the erosion of the rights of Nigerians, particularly the right to life”