Nigeria’s promise to the Human Rights Council during the 2009 Universal Period Review (UPR) of the country that it would embark on an annual consultative forum for review of its human rights practices has not been fulfilled.
Mr. Legborsi Saro Pyagbara, the National Co-ordinator, Niger Delta UPR Coalition disclosed this in an address during the presentation of the Niger Delta Review last week at Rockview Hotels, Abuja.
According to Pyagbara, the Nigerian government in 2006 committed itself to implementing all the international human rights standards which the country had ratified including the regional instruments as part of its agreement under the new human rights mechanism created by the United Nations General Assembly called the Universal Periodic Review.
Nigeria’s human rights records, he went on, were due to be reviewed in 2009 by the UPR and as a prelude to that, in December 2008, the group organized a capacity building workshop in Calabar where groups in the Niger Delta were trained on the Universal Periodic Review, adding that, in February 2009, during Nigeria’s review, her group led a delegation from the Niger Delta to attend the 4th session of the Universal Periodic Review of Nigeria and have since engaged in several other activities aimed at making things work.
The co-ordinator further disclosed that following Nigeria’s promise to the Human Rights Council during the 2009 UPR of the country that it would embark on an annual consultative forum for review of its human rights practices, the Niger Delta UPR Coalition with the assistance of its supporters decided to be carrying out an annual UPR outcome implementation assessment to see how the country is implementing its obligations under the outcome.
“In the face of government failure, the Niger Delta UPR Coalition has carried out its modest annual assessment of the UPR outcome and it is our happiness that we are presenting to you three volumes of the exercise we have undertaken in this regard in the last three years”, Pyagbara told the gathering at Rockview Hotels.
It was on that note that the coalition called on Nigerian government to set in motion the process for the development of a well defined UPR implementation plan which indicates clear steps and timelines for implementation of the recommendations in its UPR outcome, while warning that the era of making rhetoric on human rights protection was over.###
Source: National Network Newspaper