National Human Rights Commission or Compromise?

With over five million complaints of human rights violations in three years, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) is lagging in its core mandate of ensuring redress and justice. But, the commission is also encumbered by inadequate funding and alleged interference by the executive and the judiciary, BRIDGET CHIEDU ONOCHIE reports.

The incessant cases of human rights violations in the country have heightened fears about the capacity of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to end the onslaught against hapless citizens.

However, the seeming apathy in handling these unending streams of complaints is largely blamed on the recklessness and impunity with which rights abuses are perpetuated across the country.

Established by Decree No. 22 of 1995, the NHRC is empowered to deal with issues of protecting human rights as guaranteed by the Nigerian Constitution and other regional and international human rights protection instruments.

Consequent to the high number of cases of abuse, many allege that the commission has failed to make use of its quasi-judicial powers to effectively pursue the human rights agenda, which includes monitoring and investigating all alleged cases of human rights violations, assisting victims and seeking appropriate remedies on their behalf.

The concerned citizens are miffed with the numerous cases of unlawful arrest, detention without trial, torture of journalists, invasion of people’s privacy by government officials, rape, forced evictions without alternatives, gender discrimination, and demolition of people’s property with impunity.

For instance, official reports indicate that between 2021 and January this year, the commission received over five million cases of human rights violations. In 2021, 1,701,537 complaints were received out of which 1,187,079 were treated within the year.

A total of 2,314,440 complaints were received in 2022 out of which the commission investigated and concluded matters on 1,643,018 of them. It received over 6,000 election-related complaints in 2023 and 1,147 complaints in January this year.

Unfortunately, cases of rights abuses are largely under-reported in the country due to poor knowledge of the activities of the commission.

It is part of this worrisome development that has heightened stakeholders’ calls for the repositioning of the Commission for effective handling of its responsibilities.

Among the challenges confronting the commission are poor funding and alleged interference by the executive and the judiciary.

For instance, in the area of funding, the sum of N12 billion was budgeted for the commission between 2021 and 2023; N3 billion in 2021, N4.5 billion in 2022, and N4.5 billion in 2023.

A source, who pleaded anonymity disclosed that it sometimes takes the intervention of donor agencies to fund some investigations, and in some extreme cases, complainants also fund the investigation of their complaints.

Scenarios like this explain why human rights lawyer, Festus Oguche, decried that the citizenry is not feeling the impact of NHRC in several ways in a country where human rights violation grows daily.

Noting that the commission has every necessary legal capacity to preserve fundamental human rights and ensure that violations are treated expressly, he held that its powers are not as visible as expected, particularly where government institutions were allegedly responsible for the rights abuses.

“The commission ought to be the voice of the people in areas where the government has failed to provide succour and justice for victims. There were killings in Jos, burning of houses, and displacement of citizens. To what extent has the commission intervened? The commission must point to the government, the direction to take where people have lost confidence in its security architecture.

“There have been allegations of operatives of the Nigeria Police Force, and the military agencies aiding and abating killings and destructions. What has the commission done in investigating the allegations and making victims understand that it is interested in their matters?

“The commission is there to show the government its areas of failures in the quality of lives of Nigerians; quality of education, and the quality of general existence of the population. But it has failed in these areas,” Oguche stated.

But the Senior Human Rights Adviser to the Executive Secretary of NHRC, Hilary Ogbonna, thinks that most of these claims are unfounded. He specifically insisted that there is no executive or judicial interference in the activities of the commission.

“We are not serving any government’s interest and we are not answerable to anybody in Nigeria; we do what the Act says we should do. We submit our reports annually to the National Assembly, and the Presidency by the Act establishing the commission.

“The petitions before us are treated to the best of our ability. Out of the millions that we receive every year, the majority are treated and concluded. Some of them are carried over just like the court of law. The commission may not begin a case and finish it within one year, and cases that come in October or November may be carried over to the next year, but they would be reported as cases received in the year that they were brought before the commission.”

Ogbonna, who stressed that the commission has no challenge, added that it is doing all it could, and it would be unfair for people to think, or say otherwise.

He added that it effectively handled the 197 petitions received following the #EndSARS protest, and over N400 million paid in compensation without appreciation by the public. “All we need is the enabling environment to do our work,” he said.

But another source that countered Ogbonna’s position admitted that complaints have been coming in torrents to the commission yearly, especially since 2016, “and it receives over a million complaints annually, but the truth is that the commission is at the mercy of the Federal High Court. So, it is struggling to see if the Federal High Court will give regulations on how to enforce its determinations, which is more or less an impossible thing.

“My position is that it is not their business how their determinations are enforced, but it is their business to treat every petition and make a pronouncement on them.

“So, if the law says that I should decide and my determination is equal to the judgment of a high court, it is the business of those who enforce judgments to do so. My disappointment generally is the commission’s unwillingness to tackle most of the complaints brought before it,” the source said.

In his opinion, the Executive Director of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, feared that the NHRC might be under some invisible controls, which is making it difficult to carry out investigations against powerful individuals connected with the government.

He, therefore, called for the strengthening of the commission through the amendment of its Act to further empower it. He also called for financial autonomy and adequate budgeting to enable it to respond to the numerous complaints and others not officially reported.

“As long as the executive continues to give them envelopes as budget, the commission cannot do much because it needs resources for advocacies, investigations and even to pay compensations,” he said.

He, however, expressed the need for Nigerians to acknowledge and appreciate the commission for the way it handled the #EndSARS probe and for ensuring that victims were compensated. “This is historical and I salute them for that.”

“During the election, the commission followed up on issues, including electoral violence. However, to sustain their efforts, there is a need to strengthen them to be able to raise the human rights agenda because we need a National Human Rights Commission that can checkmate abuses. The commission should be supported to raise human rights consciousness and awareness and engage in human rights education to empower Nigerians to defend their rights daily,” Rafsanjani said.