Right to Shelter: NHRC identifies demolitions among human rights violations complaints across Nigeria, others
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has identified demolitions of properties and confiscation as part of the human rights violations complaints it received in April 2024 nationwide.
The NHRC’s Senior Human Rights Adviser to the NHRC Executive Secretary, Hilary Ogbonna, disclosed this during the Commission’s April 2024 Human Rights Situation Dashboard presentation made available to Nairametrics on Friday.
The commission disclosed that the right to Housing and Shelter is part of the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR) every Nigerian is entitled to enjoy, subject to the observance of relevant laws.
According to the dashboard, a total of 19,470 complaints were received by the Commission, in April.
Out of the 19,470 complaints, 3695 ESCR complaints were received across the nation while the top ten states with high human rights complaints were listed as “Borno, Kano, Plateau, Taraba, Lagos, Kaduna, Bauchi, Osun, Abia, Rivers.”
Under the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights(ESCR), NHRC listed the rights allegedly violated to include “Right to Education, Right to Health, Denial of Employment Benefits, Denial of Inheritance rights, Discrimination, Right to Housing/Shelter (Demolition, confiscation etc).”
The NHRC highlighted the main violators of these rights to be the Nigerian Police, parents, military, private sector actors, bandits and militia groups.
The NHRC dashboard stated that the nature of the human rights complaints received across the affected states included the denial of employment benefits, discrimination, cultism, and violence among others.
The commission stated that when compared with previous months’ records, April’s complaints represent an upsurge in human rights violations across Nigeria.
The complaints were broken down as follows:
The NHRC Executive Secretary, Tony Ojukwu said the analysis of human rights violations across broad will provide policymakers, international partners, law enforcement agencies, civil society actors and the media with the opportunity to gain insights into the evolving human rights landscape in Nigeria and explore collaborative avenues for addressing emerging challenges.
He stressed that the dashboard provides information that will trigger a chain of multi-faceted actions from every arm of government in tackling insecurity, poverty and inequalities in our country.
The Commission also seized the moment to call for stricter legislation against cultism in Nigeria; its dashboard, having shown violence to be on the high side.
The commission maintained that cultism is one of the activities that threatens the peace and prosperity of a country.
The Commission stated,
