More than 2.3 million petitions were submitted by Nigerians in the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in 2022, data obtained from the agency by Newslodge shows.
The complaints were lodged at the NHRC headquarters in Abuja and its branches in the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
In 2022, Nigerians, under the regime of former President Muhammadu Buhari, faced a high cost of living caused by rising food prices, among other issues.
Complaints in the year under review were largely filed against individuals, the Nigerian judicial system and law enforcement agencies.
According to the data, the alleged rights violations occurred in 14 broad areas, namely: sexual and gender-based violence; women and gender rights; children’s rights; liberty/liberty of people; right to life; freedom of religion; and law enforcement and human dignity.
There were also issues around labor rights; freedom from discrimination; judiciary, rule of law and access to justice; right of the elderly; Niger Delta and environment; and others.
Increase in rights violations
Raw data Newslodge obtained from the NHRC showed a notable increase in violations of the rights of Nigerians in 2022.
The commission attributed the increase in the number of complaints from 1,701,357 in 2021 to 2,314,440 in 2022, to the “complete removal of restrictions as a result of the coronavirus pandemic”, which allowed more complainants to submit their petitions.
But 60 of the petitions were inadmissible under procedural rules, the CNDH said.
He also said that the increase in rapes could be due to the increased use of social media and the wave of kidnappings and banditry in Nigeria in the first quarter of 2022, among other reasons.
Break down
The commission classified the total number of complaints filed by individuals, groups or organizations into 14 broad areas of human rights violations during the year under review.
Giving a quarterly distribution of complaints, the commission received a total of 478,610 requests in the first quarter of 2022, while 779,543 complaints were received in the second quarter. In the third quarter, the complaint profile increased further to 781,156 requests, but fell by a wide margin to 275,131 complaints in the fourth quarter.
With 567,160 complaints filed, violations relating to the quality of life of Nigerians top the list.
In Nigeria, food inflation reached 17.2 percent and 18.37 percent in March and April 2022, a situation partly attributed to the war between Russia and Ukraine, insecurity and the currency crisis that since then it has gotten worse.
The data clearly suggested that the high figures could be attributed to “increased poverty and unemployment which negatively impacted the quality of life” of Nigerians.
From child labor, trafficking and child abuse to denial of the right to education, the data clearly suggested that children were greatly affected in 388,700 complaints related to child rights abuses in the year under review.
Complaints about sexual and gender violence, violations of women’s rights, law enforcement and human dignity also constituted a large percentage of the total petitions received by the CNDH between January and December 2022.
While issues of sexual and gender violence as well as women’s and gender rights accounted for 193,360 and 198,220 complaints respectively, the judiciary and the rule of law had 96,740 complaints.
Complaints against law enforcement officers bordering on human dignity amounted to 109,020, while labor rights issues registered 157,100 petitions
Other issues bordering on the Niger Delta and the environment were recorded in 3,960 complaints.
The right to life was reported in 94,480 complaints, which described rampant incidents of violence in Nigeria, caused by serious rights violations by security agents and non-state actors.
The status of complaints showed that a total of 1,643,018 of the 2,314,380 admissible complaints, representing 70.99 percent, were investigated and concluded by the commission.
The remaining 671,362 complaints (representing 29 percent) were ongoing in various stages of investigation and mediation as of December 31, 2022.
Geographic analysis
In terms of geographical distribution of petitions, Rivers State in south-south Nigeria received the highest number of complaints with 275,057.
Kaduna State, in northwestern Nigeria, received the second highest number of complaints, with 242,220, while Delta State (south-south Nigeria) received 222,398 complaints, ranking third.
Other states that recorded a high number of rights violations were Imo, Niger, Ebonyi, Lagos and Sokoto states.
Compensation
The report revealed that the sum of N281,454,093.73 was paid as reparation to 70 victims of various rights violations by law enforcement officers.
The commission had set up an independent investigative panel to investigate cases of rights violations by the police in the wake of the #EndSARS protests that rocked Nigeria in October 2020.
End of the Sars protests. Image credit: Akinbosola Adeyemi
Many Nigerians had taken to the streets to demand an end to widespread cases of police brutality.
The protests forced the government to disband the rebel Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) unit of the Nigerian police led by then-president Muhammadu Buhari.
Inadequate funding for research
At a news conference on Friday, the commission’s executive secretary, Tony Ojukwu, said better funding was needed to keep up with the investigation and resolution of complaints flooding the agency.
Ojukwu, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), juxtaposed the NHRC’s annual budget of N4.5 billion with the number of petitions cluttering the commission and operational costs in 36 branches of the federation and Abuja.
He said if the commission spent N5,000 per complaint, it would cost it N10 billion to investigate two million petitions, which is more than double its annual budget.
Ojukwu expressed the commission’s commitment to combating human rights violations despite the challenges.