Available evidence on the ground shows increasing violence, insecurity and abductions, leading inevitably to arbitrary deprivation of lives and many other human rights abuses, and illustrating the troubling gap between Mr. Buhari’s promise and action.
Browsing: Kolawole Olaniyan
When Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari was named by the African Union as its first “anti-corruption champion in Africa” in 2018, he called on member states to “invest in institutions to entrench transparency and accountability.”
The fight against corruption has been an important facet of his rhetoric but his persistent disobedience of court orders, disdain for Nigerian judges and flagrant violations of human rights under his watch puts into question his commitment to actually ending corruption.
Mr. Buhari has backed his commitment by putting in place some important measures such as the Treasury Single Account, the Whistle-Blowing Policy and the establishment of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, to combat the systemic theft of public resources and by extension, its pernicious effects on human rights and development.
In this comprehensive and incisive book, Femi Falana (SAN) sets out to examine the legal treatment of socio-economic rights in Nigeria, and the broader context in which the rights are defined, understood, interpreted and implemented. As the book makes clear, the lack of constitutional recognition of socio-economic rights has continued to rob Nigerians of “one major instrument for monitoring and controlling the conduct of those making public decisions on their behalf”. Indeed, the framers of Nigeria’s constitutions have historically failed to take human dignity seriously.