NHRC to Engage Presidential Aspirants on Agenda for Human Rights

The Executive Secretary of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Anthony Ojukwu SAN, said the commission will be engaging presidential aspirants on their agendas for human rights.

Ojukwu said the commission would equally be engaging governorship aspirants, aspirants to National Assembly and the States Assemblies on making human rights an election issue.

He said the rights of Nigerians are being violated everyday and Nigerians need to know how the succeeding government would provide the platform that can help human rights.

The Executive Secretary said this in Abuja during an advocacy visit to NHRC by OXFAM and Connected Development (CODE) to discuss some of the challenges witnessed in oil-bearing communities and how NHRC is working to domesticate the National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights in Nigeria (NAP) as a tool to supporting the implementation of the UNGPs at the federal and state levels.

He said, “We are taking it as a major issue now, not only about registering to vote; we must mobilise people to collect their PVCs. We are going to work with INEC for this and also mobilse for people to come out and exercise their rights to vote.

“The commission wants to also engage our presidential, governorship and national assembly and members of the legislature at the state level on making human rights an election issue. We need to know; people’s rights are being violated every day. How will the succeeding government provide the platform that can help human rights?

“Imagine when we did the International Day for the Disappeared yesterday, figures coming out shows that Nigeria has one of the highest number of disappeared persons in Africa – about 25,000. And these are human rights issues arising from conflicts, violence and activities of law enforcement agents.”

On his part, the founder, Connected Development, Hamzat Lawal said a collaboration needs to be made between the commission, CODE and Oxfam to document lessons, share, engage government and hold to account agencies created to ensure proper regulation in places like the Niger Delta region where environmental degradation is hampering the right of people to clean air.