Says N20b budget dwarfed by complaints

National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) yesterday expressed concern over the increasing cases of rights violations in the country, revealing that it received a total of 338,810 complaints in September alone.

According to the Commission, the majority of petitions lodged before it were from the North-Central geopolitical zone, with most cases originating from Benue, Plateau and Niger states.

The Executive Secretary of the NHRC, Dr Tony Ojukwu, said the Commission’s human rights dashboard showed an increase of 40,867 complaints, approximately 14 per cent, compared with the 297,943 recorded in August.

NHRC also raised the alarm over severe funding constraints, saying its budget of N20 billion is grossly inadequate to investigate millions of human rights complaints recorded yearly across the country.

Ojukwu said the agency would require more than N30 billion yearly to cover even the basic transportation costs of investigating complaints, based on an estimated N10,000 per case.

He made the remarks while responding to questions from journalists in Abuja yesterday during the presentation of the Commission’s September 2026 Human Rights Situation Dashboard, which recorded 3.7 million complaints yearly, warning that inadequate funding was limiting its capacity to investigate cases and provide effective remedies to victims.

The commission’s funding challenge, he said, was compounded by the lack of sufficient operational vehicles, which forced field officers to rely on hired transport to reach complainants and investigate alleged violations.

According to Ojukwu, an officer travelling to a location to investigate a complaint could spend about N5,000 on the journey and another N5,000 on the return.

He contrasted the commission’s current budget with the N8 million it received in the previous year, describing the agency as grossly underfunded despite its nationwide responsibilities.

However, he said the N20 billion budget also had to support the commission’s wider operations, including staff salaries, office maintenance, rent, electricity, fuel, and vehicles.

He said the commission operated across the country with approximately 4,900 staff, adding that the cost of running its facilities alone placed considerable pressure on available resources.

Ojukwu, however, said the commission was pursuing digital transformation to improve its operations and expand its capacity to handle complaints despite financial constraints.

He expressed hope that increasing the budget to N40 billion would bring the commission closer to meeting its operational requirements, while acknowledging that significant gaps would remain.

The September dashboard highlighted persistent human rights concerns, including killings, kidnappings, attacks on communities, deaths in custody, sexual and gender-based violence, and the vulnerability of women and children.

Ojukwu expressed particular concern over reports of mass abductions in Niger State, where families continued to endure the anguish of having their loved ones held captive.