It would be recalled that sometimes in 2017, there was an exchange between the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. This altercation served to highlight the alleged human rights failings of the President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB) government. Crucially, as good as they have come, an apparent inability to observe a strict obedience to the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as amended, upon which they derived all their powers of sovereignty has continued to bog it down somehow. Over time, this situation has more or less, left even many of its ardent supporters in spasms of wonder and bewilderment. A concern made all the more pertinent on account of the draconian potentials of its chief executive officer who had in the past run over the nation roughshod as a military dictator.
Initially many had seen a tincture of these in the detentions that had followed the birth of the government’s war on corruption. Given that many of those that the officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had gone after in the first tranche of arrests had come from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the former party in power, many had seen the hand of Esau in Jacob’s voice in the campaign. So much that some civil liberty organisations started smelling rats; a suspicion that only heightened when some of these suspects started being denied bail as and when due.
A case in point then was the continued detention of the then spokesperson of the PDP, Olisa Metuh and former National Security Adviser (NSA) Colonel Sambo Dasuki on the allegation that the former was paid over one billion Naira from the $2.1 billion arms vote domiciled in the office of the latter. While the former has since been granted bail, the latter is yet to see the heavens ever since. A development that has since become a sad precedent to many more as the regime’s reign enfolded. Even as the courts have also subsequently granted bail to Dasuki, government has consistently refused to grant freedom for the accused. Yet, the fundament of our statute books states that an accused remains innocent until proven otherwise by a court of competent jurisdiction.
Significantly, in contention then among hardcore patriots was a twosome of concerns. Not only was the nation’s security thrown to the winds, but also it appeared as though the government – not unlike the greedy hunter in lore – had traded the elephantine prevention of future crimes for the tracing of cricket-sized ones committed in the most recent past. This implied security misnomer was to be corrected as the embattled former head of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) Ayo Oke became involved. He was probed for the $43.4 million operations cash found by the EFCC at apartment 7b, Osbourne Towers Ikoyi. In turn, the former was to be justified in the consequent indictment of the sacked former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir David Lawal, who under the president’s very nose awarded million-naira contracts to a company in which he had interests.
Like it turned out, this alleged human rights bias of the Federal Government was buoyed somewhat when others arrested for different offences were also kept in detention even as courts of competent jurisdiction passed rulings to the contrary. These included the since freed but later abducted leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and the still under lock and key leader of the Shiite Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) Sheik Ibrahim El-Zakzaky. While the government has been hailed for those released to face their trials in freedom awaiting punishment till they are duly convicted, an unceasing amount of flak has continued to trail the continued detention of Dasuki and El-Zakzaky. In different releases A. B. Mahmoud, the immediate past National President of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) and Itse Sagay the chairman Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC) had cause to berate the government on this.
There is no doubt that the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Al-Hussien only had the temerity to include Nigeria in his list of human rights hot spots of the world with such other countries like Venezuela, Egypt and the Philippines on account of these. Allegedly, this was for the country having blocked multiple UN expert visits; a statement that has since been reversed following its countering by the Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Affairs Ministry Sola Enikandaiye at the 35th Session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva last year.
While it is agreed to the permanent secretary’s statement about the government’s commitment to the discharge of its international human rights obligations, I think this should start from home. Meeting international human rights statutes when your citizens are held in detention against court orders does not speak well of us. The sooner these local wrongs are righted, the better we can stand up for the count as human rights upholders and no longer shall we be called out as its violators internationally. To join the comity of democratic nations of the world in all ramifications, the Buhari administration must embrace all democratic tenets including obeying court orders, respect for fundamental human rights, the rule of law and separation of powers.
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