As part of activities to commemorate this year’s World Human Rights Day, the Ikeja branch of the Nigeria Bar Association, NBA, organised an enlightenment programme at the Ikeja Local government office. Our Assistant Editor, CHINWE MADUAGWU, who was at the event reports that speakers scored Nigeria low on the human rights indices.
December 10, of every year is designated World Human Rights day. According to Wikipidia, the date was chosen to honour the United Nations General Assembly’s adoption and proclamation, on December 10, 1948, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UDHR.
This year marked the 70th anniversary of the Human Rights Day, and like every other year, countries, groups and organisations put together different activities to commemorate the day.
The Ikeja branch of the Nigeria Bar Association, NBA, put together an enlightenment programme where they offered free legal services to members of the public and also created awareness on certain issues of rights abuse. The event held at the Ikeja Local Government office, beside the rail tracks, Ikeja Bus stop, Lagos.
Mr. Bartholomew Aguegbodo, a member of the Ikeja branch of the NBA, kicked off the conversation by explaining what human rights are.
According to him, “human rights are God given rights that under no circumstances can be taken away from man. They are those rights without which man would become brutish and would live in archaic time where strength becomes right.”
Sadly, though these rights are enshrined in the country’s constitution and other legal documents, he adjudged Nigeria to have the worst human rights abuse records.
He said: “Nigeria is the worst country with human rights abuse record. In virtually all aspects of life Nigerians face issues of breach or infringement of human rights. In a country like Nigeria, where the court will say release a man on bail and the government will say ‘no, I won’t obey the court order, because by my interpretation the person is a threat to national security;’ where you can file an application for bail for an offence that is bailable and the magistrate will tell you he or she is under pressure not to release on bail, that can only be a country where human rights is observed in the breach.
“Right in front of us here is the Lagos state environmental sanitation bus. You can see them watching the marketers selling, probably because people selling today have ‘settled.’ On a day they don’t settle as they are supposed to, they will raid them. In a civilized society if you say a place is not designated to be a market, you’ll ensure trading does not go on there at any time; but you can see the law enforcement agents here and you can see the market going on. Tomorrow you may see them raiding another set of people. You cannot talk about human rights in this type of setting.
“Just this morning a police man was standing right in front of us here and a vehicle drove through this one way, he saw the vehicle entering the street but didn’t stop the driver. He allowed the vehicle drive into the street only to run forward to stop it and arrest the driver; these are abuses.
“In a civilized country a law enforcement agent that sees you about to drive through a one way road will stop you and ask for your driver’s license and if you really went to a driving school you’d have observed the road sign and he would have booked you at that point for attempting to commit an offense and not for committing that offense. We are more interested in arresting the person, taking the person by the road side and collecting money from the person and in such situations, infringement of rights will be a regular occurrence.”
The lawyer touched on the issue of child abuse noting that it was not a new thing. According to him, it only seemed to have become rampant because people have become more aware and willing to report such cases.
Aguegbodo said: “Child abuse has been with us for decades, where an adult will go to the village and bring a house help and be treating the house help like a slave. Her children will eat a separate meal while the house help will eat the leftovers. It has been with us for over four decades, but people did not know their rights until the awareness campaigns began. It is this awareness that is bringing people out to report incidents of child abuse.”
Taking up from Mr. Aguegbodo, Ms. Uju Okeke, a child’s rights expert and legal practitioner, emphasised that children have as much rights as adults and even more.
“Whether we like it or not, we were all children before we grew up. When we talk about child’s right, we are talking about our rights as children retroactively; what we should have expected to happen to us as children. As adults, some things happened to us as children that we did not like. Now as adults, we see those things and still not do anything to correct them. That is not right.
“Children have rights because they are human beings. When you talk about the rights in the constitution, it includes all of us and because children are a special group, we have the child rights act which Nigeria has enacted. It is the bible of children’s right. Every right that a child should have in Nigeria is there. And of particular importance in the Child Right Act is that even some rights that are not enforceable for adults are enshrined in the Act. For instance, the right to health and the right to education are not enforceable for adults even though it is in the constitution, but in the child rights act it is there and it is enforceable. A child that does not have right to health services can go to court on it. A child that does not have right to education can go to court on it.”
She explained that Section 2 of the Constitution provides for the right to education free of charge from primary to junior secondary school, but that wasn’t enforceable before the Child’s Right Act came into force and made it enforceable.
However, she noted that some of these rights are not enforced because people do not know it is their right. She said; “The fact is that the court is not ‘father Christmas’ that will give you what you did not ask for. Again, you don’t sit down in your house and get some of these things except you step out and go to the court. The court has said that every child has a right to education. It is compulsory and basic. So it is left for the people to access it.”
Okeke described child abuse to simply mean “maltreatment of a child,” adding, “It could be sexual, it could be psychological, it could also be physical.”
She explained further: “Many times, children offend and we punish them, but when you give a child a punishment that is bigger than him or the offence, that’s abuse. For instance, let’s assume that a child is six years and he/she does something wrong and you give that child 50 strokes of cane, that’s an abuse. Then talk about psychological abuse; a child does something wrong and you begin to tell that child he/she will not amount to anything, that’s psychological abuse. That child will become withdrawn and will not participate in what other children are doing.”
She aligned with Aguegbodo that sexual abuse of the young ones seems to be on the increase only because more people are talking about it now unlike before when it would happen and people would sweep it under the carpet, noting that that was the only way to stop it.
Okeke threw more light on what could constitute child sexual abuse and some signs that a child might be going through abuse.
“It is not only when you sleep with a child that it is sexual abuse or molestation. When you show a child pornographic films, that’s an abuse, it is molestation. When an adult begins to show his or her private part to a child that’s molestation. When an adult wants to see a child’s private part that’s molestation.
“The truth is that most parents do this without knowing, but there is a lot of enlightenment now that parents should have rooms separate from their children, when a parent is dressing please don’t allow children to be there, one can only be a child once, let us not expose them to what they will see at the right age, there’s no point making a child an adult at once, it doesn’t make sense.
“Also, some parents out of ignorance think because they can afford an iPhone then their child should have one. Phones for children should be age sensitive. What is a child in primary school doing with an iPhone? Sincerely speaking, it doesn’t make sense. You can keep a landline at home where they can call the parents, why do you need to give that child a phone.”
On the signs to look out for, she said: “There are some signs we should see and we’ll know that something is wrong. I’m not saying that automatically once you see such signs it means a child is being abused but it gives you the opportunity to probe or know that something might be wrong. For instance, if a child that has stopped bed wetting suddenly starts bed wetting again something is wrong. A child that is peaceful suddenly starts to show outbursts of anger unnecessarily then something is wrong. A child that is bold all of a sudden becomes clingy then something is wrong. A child that would normally go somewhere alone all of a sudden must go with the dad or mum because he/she is afraid to go there or to see a particular uncle or aunt then something is wrong and that should get our attention that we need to probe further.”
She also noted that when an adult begins to spend too much time with a child of opposite sex, that adult should be probed.
Mr. Richard Nwankwo, a lawyer and Founder, Crusade for Justice, scored the government both at federal and state levels low in commitment to and upholding human rights.
“I must be very Frank to tell you that I’ve not seen any commitment on the part of the government to human rights. I think this government represents a failure as far as human rights observance is concerned. They have totally failed us in several ways. There are countless incidents that are worrisome; look at the issue of the detention of Ibrahim El zakzaky and the wife, look at the issue of the killing of Islamic movement in Zaria, the killings going on in the North-East by Boko Haram.
“The inability on the part of the government to protect the lives and properties of citizens of this country is a violation of the human rights of members of this country and I think that’s where we should proceed from. We can talk about the killing of IPOB agitators in the South-East, of course, the massacre that went on in the middle belt, particularly the killing of people in Agatu and so many others.
“The disobedience of court order signals to lawlessness, it shows a total defiance to the ideals of constitutional democracy, it is an abuse of political development and I think the government I see today, judging from the perspective of human rights which we are celebrating today is a monumental failure.”
He also touched on the issue of police brutality, especially the Special Anti Robbery Squad, SARS, insisting that the government has not adequately addressed its abuse of human rights.
His words: “We all know that it is impossible to address such issues on the pages of newspapers. If there is any address of some of these problems, there must be a robust programme being engineered by lawyers because all borders on education. We need to educate and enlighten them to appreciate the need to respect human rights. These are issues that cannot be addressed overnight by decree. So I think what the leadership of the Nigeria Police is doing is playing to the gallery, it has nothing to do with the restructuring of the Nigeria Police.
“It cannot be done overnight, it cannot be done on the pages of the newspapers. Of course, you know that the success of this government is also on the pages of newspapers. Take Lagos for instance, there’s a lot of talk about Lagos, but it is the worst city to live in in the whole world. You see police officers, instead of preventing people from crossing the expressway; they wait for you to cross because the state government is using these petty infringements to raise money. They arrest such people and take them to Alausa and ask them to pay. Instead of preventing people from committing the offence, they encourage people to commit the offence so that Lagos state will make money. That is irresponsible police leadership, very condemnable and unacceptable.”
Responding to the allegation in some quarters that the judiciary was part of government’s abuse of human rights, Nwankwo said: “I will not agree totally and I will not disagree totally, the reason is that in every 12 there must be a Judas. It is just like the visit of the six blind men to the elephant, your perception depends on the part of the elephant you touch. If you are unfortunate to appear before a corrupt judge your impressions will be woven with corruption, if you appear before decent judges most of whom I know are in the judiciary, your impression will be that of something good. I think it’s a pot-pourri depending on the part of the elephant you touch. But the fact remains that there is no community without Judas and for judiciary, one corrupt judge is enough to destroy the integrity of the whole because for you to be in that platform you must be above board.
“Our agitation is that the judicial system has an in-house filtering system through which they eliminate judges that are corrupt and the National judicial council has been doing that consistently. Every year, judges are being sacked, some are being charged to court.”
With all said, what is the way forward in curbing human rights abuses in the country?
He said: “We cannot address human rights violation without an enlightened leadership, the leadership must be educated, must be enlightened, must be urbane and must be people of culture, finesse and maximal international exposure. I think the problem we have is that we’re being led by a regime propelled by absolute ignorance with total disrespect for education and human rights enforcement, which is the challenge.”
He advocated the continued and sustained enlightenment campaigns to ensure people know their rights, noting that if people know their rights, it won’t be easy for anybody to infringe on them.
He said his NGO, Crusade for Justice has been in the vanguard of enlightening people on human right abuse. “We have programmes going on year in and year out bothering on enlightenment and education. We visit prisons and police stations to enlighten and educate them.”
He also said the NBA programme will be sustained because the bar has been consistent with the agitation of the defence of the human rights.
For Ms. Okeke, the way forward, especially with regard to abuse of children is for adults especially parents to be there for their children. “The way out first and foremost, is to have time for your children. In Lagos, we say parents don’t have time but you have to make time. I always say a child can only be a child once; so parents, have time for your children and be observant and then make them trust you; let them know they can talk to you about anything without you condemning them.”
She noted that a lot of work still needs to be done to get respect for human rights where it ought to be in the country. Her words: “Well we’re not where we used to be and we’re not where we should be but it’s a gradual process and we are getting there. The truth is Nigerians are not litigious, in other words, they don’t want to go to court for anything. People are like it’s time and money, but it doesn’t take your money. There are a lot of groups that go to court pro bono, that is free of charge. For instance, the human rights committee of NBA Ikeja branch, does go to court free of charge for human right issues; that’s why we are enlightening people on such issues. Many people don’t know that there are groups that will go to court free of charge for them but there are so we should not live with violence, we should not live with abuse let us make noise about abuse because that’s the only way to tackle it.”
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Mr. Aguegbodo agreed with the other speakers that public enlightenment was the way forward. “I’ve already indicated that for us to talk about improving our human rights standard there must be public awareness campaign. The reason why this issue of human rights abuse has really gone unchecked is that people are not fully aware of their rights. If what is happening in Nigeria happens in any Arab country, that country will go up in flames. The Arab spring started because a young man who was a graduate could not get a job, he raised some money and started fruit business in a cart by the public place and the security agents arrested him, impounded his cart and took it away. He went to a fuel station, bought some litres of fuel and set himself ablaze in the market square and the people revolted and removed a sitting government. In Nigeria, it can’t happen because people will ask you if you’re the only person suffering the abuse.”
He also touched on police abuse. “There is a trend within the police; a police officer will meet a young man carrying a bag, he’ll stop him and if the young man is carrying a laptop open it and ask for his password; that is a violation of a person’s right to privacy. There is no law empowering any policeman to stop someone on the road and ask for the password to their laptop.
“But they do it and if in the process of going through a young man’s laptop, he sees a mail between him and a female friend where he is asking for help, he arrests the man and labels him a yahoo boy and they collect money from the guy. This happens because the victims don’t know where to go to. I think we have to start a public enlightenment campaign to inform the people on what their rights are.”
Aguegbodo disclosed that Ikeja branch of the NBA has a committee known as the Human Rights Committee; with a permanent desk at the bar center Ikeja. According to him, the desk can be approach anytime from 9a.m to 4 p.m weekdays when any infringement occurs and somebody will be on ground to attend to them.