Femi Falana, SAN, second from right, other dignitaries and Arthur Worrey, former Lagos State Director of Public Prosecution on the podium
By Ayo Kehinde
Human rights activist and a Seniour Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, Mr Femi Falana has submitted that the success of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration rest with what Nigerians should do in their respective capacities to compel the government to respect their rights..
Speaking as a guest at a recent Panafest Colloquium on Entrenching Democracy in Nigeria, the Bola Tinubu Government, held in Lagos, Falana said Nigeria has very comprehensive human rights laws that are more modern than what obtains in America and the United Kingdom. Nigerians, he held, need to be aware of the laws to enable their enforcement as they cover a wide range of rights covering the well-being and welfare of the citizenry.
Nigeria, he said, has one of the best human rights laws in the world but on paper.
He listed some of the enforcement right to include the fundamental rights that are entrenched in Chapter 4 of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights since 1960 that was retained in Chapter 3 of the 1979 Constitution: Right to life; right to dignity; right to liberty; right to property; freedom of association; freedom of expression, freedom of religion and so on.
“There is also the Administration of Criminal Justice, ACJ, law operational in the 36 states and the FCT since 2015 when the National Assembly passed it into law. But are they implemented? No. Why? Because Nigerians are generally ignorant of the laws.
“Secondly, we fear to demand our rights. It is not about going to face the bullets. We need to organize in each of our neighbourhoods, and support our neighbours with cases of abuse. Take the ACJ law for example, it contains certain rights: first in any police station when you are under arrest you have the rights to insist to see a lawyer before making a statement and if you have no layer, the police will contact the government to provide a lawyer from the legal aid council or the Office of the Public Defender as we have in Lagos State. And the government is duty bound to provide you a lawyer.
“Again, in a police station the police are legally bound to tell you your rights as stated in the charge sheet; you are not bound to make a statement because whatever you say can be used as evidence against you. In an example, in a case of tenant-landlord dispute over rent, the police must ensure that you are not brought to the station because you have not paid rent but because you are trespassing and even then, the police must not be involved.
“There is also anti-torture law which prohibits any Nigerian from being torture and if you are tortured it carries 25 years jail, with no option of fine. The law also makes it compulsory for every police station to have a legal desk to ensure human rights laws are complied with there.”
“So our job is already cut out for us as a people,” he said, adding, ” What we need to do is to demand for our rights. We must know our rights and fight for them, so that the President who knows the rule of law, who is committed to democracy and rule of law will be forced to act accordingly.”
He urged the organisers of the colloquium, the Kehinde and Taiwo twins with their organisation, Panafest and participants from across the media, academics, public policy and captains of industry to look out for a coming group to be formed to embarked on the popularisation of human rights provisions in the Constitution among Nigerians for easy enforcement.
Other dignitaries at the event included Mr Joe Igbokwe who represented Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu at the occasion and former Lagos State Director of Public Prosecutions, Arthur Worrey and a member of the Editorial Board of The Nation Newspaper, Femi Ojo.
Worrey expressed optimism that Tinubu would work for the betterment of the country because he had set the example with a people- oriented governance template in Lagos as governor between 1999 and 2007 in addition to being the only civilian Nigeria leader who planned to become president as against others who had been reluctant or expressed a different ambition before assuming leadership.
