Freedom Of Expression Is Vital To Vision 20:2020

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Chidi Odinkalu, Chairman, National Human Rights Commission, spoke with OLUOKUN AYORINDE on the state of human rights in Nigeria and recent invitation by the police over a statement credited to him. Excerpts.

Would you say return of democracy has impacted on the state of human rights in Nigeria?

The existence of elected government with democratic legitimacy itself is evidence that there is a broad improvement in human rights. You’ve got political leaders who owe their offices to popular mandates and that on its own, is the product of exercise of human rights. There are no perfect societies. Every society has got things that it will continue to work on and I don’t think Nigeria is an exception to that.

Yes, but reports from various local and international human rights bodies, like the Human Rights Watch and agencies  indicate that there has not been considerable improvement in the state of human rights in the country in spite of the return of democratic rule, taking into consideration the continued impunity on the part of the police and other agencies?

To begin with, my view has always been that we should not and cannot rely on the international bodies to tell us how we should treat ourselves. The obligation to treat Nigerians with respect and dignity is founded in our constitution and the values of electing government,  because every Nigerian, especially the adults who mistreated, is a potential voter. And if you are a political leader, you must see that every potential voter who has a reason to vote against you is a voter you should worry about.

So, there is a self interest in seeing that people are treated well and when people talk about what international bodies have said, I get very worried. It’s like we seek validation from outside in order to essentially respect things that our laws require us to do. If you look at the Oputa Commission report which is a presidential commission, you look at successive reports of presidential committees on police reform, or the reports of presidential commission on the administration of justice, these are more important documents than whatever any international NGO say.

To be clear, the work that international NGOs do is very important and we cannot underestimate their impact. But within government itself, there is an extensive body of official literature and official policy literature which in my view deserves closer attention. To the credit of government, I think a lot has happened particularly in upgrading the living standard of police officers for example. Government has worked hard to upgrade their salaries.

I don’t think it is enough because I think police officers do a very difficult job and if we ask people to guarantee dignity, we should give them dignity. If you don’t know dignity, you cannot guarantee it. And I think people often forget the kind of sacrifices our police officers make. For instance, police officers die on duty, but not many people die on duty in Nigeria. So, there are issues there.

But most times, the reports of those bodies are not even implemented by government which set them up. An example is the report of the Oputa Panel …

Government is a complex machine and there are two sides to government- there is a demand side and there is a supply side. The supply side is the official administration side and the political leadership. The demand side is you and I, the citizens who have an obligation to also ensure that things work. The Freedom of Information Act is there for us all now and it is one of the things that we can use to discover what is in these official documents. When you look particularly at the two presidential commissions of police reforms 2006 and 2008, quite a good number of their recommendations have been implemented.

For instance, I illustrated with the recommendations of the living standard of police officers, though I believe some work could still be done on that. Obviously, over the years there have been a lot of reports that have not gotten the kind of attention that they should have got in terms of implementation. But given the complexity of the nature of things people in government have to do, it is only human that sometimes, their attention span may shift and so on.

I have seen enough to know that it is not always that people in public service don’t want to do a thing. It happens not only in Nigeria but in different countries where I have worked with public institutions. Sometimes, it’s simply because people are overworked, too distracted, and may need to be reminded and sometimes, you see things happen.

You’ve been the Chairman of National Human Rights Commission for some months now. Is there any effort on your part to call the attention of government to some of these reports?

Like I said, there are no perfect societies and Nigeria does have its own fair share of challenges in the area of  governance. And there are different ways to address this. The first challenge is not to seek to change Nigeria overnight. There is a president who is elected to do that alongside the governors in the various states. There is also the legislature. The commission is not there to plot a revolution. The role of the commission is to foster a sense of government between citizens and the inhabitants of Nigeria and institutions constructively. You must take one step at a time and one issue at a time. But you cannot do that without getting your own house in order. The  first step is for the commission to look inward. And that is the phase it is at the moment. Don’t forget that this is the first council since 2007, so there is a great deal of in-house work to do.

The reform of the commission and its interface with various bodies concerned like the police will be going on side by side. How receptive do you think those agencies are to the work of the National Human Rights Commission?

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I am not qualified to answer that question. That’s a question for higher ranks in government who have a greater overview of what these institutions are supposed to do. But I think it smacks of institutional arrogance on the part of the commission to think that it’s alone and the people around it are only those who desire to see an effective country.

I think what I see is that many people in public service will like to see things done properly. The commission is 16 years old and the police have been around since about 1861. So, the police have a much longer history than the commission. The Civil Service also has a much longer history than the commission. Most of the institutions that you are talking about have s longer history than the Commission. So, I think the Commission has to approach them with considerable humility and see it as part of team building, mutual learning rather than any other thing.

I ask that question because of the recent invitation by the police over the comments you made on the extra judicial killings by the agency

As I said, the police is the oldest public institution in Nigeria. It is also one of the biggest employers of labour in Nigeria and thirdly, it is the institution that is likely to lose the highest number of its personnel in the course of duty in any one year in Nigeria. And these three attribute scommand a lot of respect from me. So, because of that, if the police ask to see me, I think it is a privilege to see them. Do I consider it harassment? No. I think it is also important that the Human Rights Commission is seen to show that no one is above or below institutions and processes designed to protect all of us. And I think the message that we should respect institutions and processes is a necessary one to get across. Don’t also forget that 13 years is a pretty young experience in elective government and our memory of living under non elective government is much longer than our memory and skill for managing elective government. Therefore, the skills for managing liberal democracy with multiple institutions also will have to be growing and that’s really the point. It is not a project for one day or one generation.

Each successive generation makes a contribution to creating a country that over time will have greater confidence in itself, will have greater confidence in seeing citizens express themselves not only in a way that those of us in public service would agree with, but at least, taking pride in the fact that our citizens can express themselves with confidence. But when citizens cannot express themselves with confidence, then demand side that is important in order to make the supply side of government work will not happen.

And we will not be that kind of country that vision 20:2020 envisages because the fundamental basis of vision 202020 is human development. And the message of vision 202020 is crafted around human beings, citizens who had the confidence to see a better country and seek to leave a better country for their children tomorrow than they have today.

What did the police tell you when you eventually honoured their invitation last Tuesday?

It was mutually enlightening.

The issues have been settled now?

It was mutually enlightening; I think that’s what I can say about it.

What really are their fears?

I didn’t see any fears. But you may wish to ask them.

There have been various allegations of violation of human rights by men of the Nigerian Police and Armed Forces, especially in areas where we have massive deployment of men of those agencies as a result of the security situation. I don’t know if the Commission has been receiving petitions in this regard?

There are complaints. People who have complaints of human rights violations direct them generally to the executive secretariat of the Commission and there is a system of dealing with the complaints which is established by law. Different parts of the country have different safety and security challenges. It’s not just the North; don’t forget there is JTF in the Niger Delta, there is STF in the Middle Belt, there is JTF in the North East. There are also security challenges in the SouthEast which is just coming to terms with commercial kidnapping issue.

I think it is important that we recognise that these challenges are across the country and the issue of security and public safety is one in which broad partnership is needed between government and the citizens, in fact between community and community leaders, even for people who disagree whether ideologically, politically or whatever. Everybody who wishes Nigeria well can come together and agree that we got to try and address this in a way that enables us to move forward.

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