The National Human Rights Commission [NHRC] has “condemned senior lawyers and others in public service using human rights to shield corrupt people from prosecution and justice.”
Prof. Bem Angwe, Executive Secretary of the Commission said this at the launch of a report today at the Westown Hotels, Ikeja, Lagos.
The report titled Health in decline: Human Rights Impacts of Corruption in Nigeria’s Health Sector was launched by Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project in collaboration with the Ford Foundation.
Prof. Angwe, who was represented by Mr. Wahab Oyedokun, said:
“The National Human Rights Commission believes that corruption is the biggest impediment to respect for human rights in Nigeria.
“We recognize that we have to fight corruption to ensure human rights. There is a problem in the human rights community.
“That problem is that we have pretenders in the human rights and legal communities using the platform of human rights to advance corruption and to shield corrupt elements in our society.”
“It is our responsibility to expose and de-legitimise these pretenders and to make sure that our citizens recognize that fight against corruption and impunity of perpetrators is really the cause to promote human rights.
“This is the right course to take as a human rights advocate,” Prof Angwe said.
According to him, “The constitutional guarantee of presumption of innocence is a shield and not a sword, and corrupt officials cannot claim not to be tried because they have human rights, especially given the massive stealing of our commonwealth.
“A shield to protect citizens from sponsored state power and doesn’t have to become a sword by which corrupt people will say because they have human rights they are entitled to steal our commonwealth with impunity and subject our people to suffering.”
“You can’t steal so much and subject people to suffering and claim him human rights. This is not the way to go.
“Human rights are for the advancement of the greatest majority of the greatest number.
“So, when we see our senior citizens at the Bar, or public service trying to delegitimize the work of SERAP, National Human Rights Commission and other human rights bodies we have to make sure that we shout them down,” Prof Angwe also said.
Others who attended the report launch included: Mr M. H Bello for National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC); Morayo Adebayo of Amnesty International; Dr Ezeogun Joseph and Dr R.O. Ayorinde the representatives of the President Nigerian Medical Association and the Lagos State Commissioner for Health, respectively.
SERAP’s report is calling on President Muhammadu Buhari to “urgently instruct the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice to promptly refer to appropriate anticorruption agencies for prosecution several unresolved cases of corruption involving the Ministry of Health, including the $29 million Vaccine Grants Scam; N1.9 billion Special Intervention Fund Ebola Fund Scandal; and Nigeria Pharmaceutical Institute Ghost Workers and Illegal Recruitment Scam.”
The report is calling for “suspected perpetrators of corruption in the Ministry of Health to be brought to justice and for stolen public funds to be fully recovered to pursue the developmental agenda of the government and lift the country out of recession.”
The report also asks Buhari to “encourage anticorruption commissions and agencies to proactively launch and follow through investigations into credible allegations of corruption in the Ministry of Health including by investigating other pervasive allegations of corruption in the health sector in greater depth and promptly and satisfactorily concluding any pending investigations on corruption in the spending of budget allocations and international aids to the ministry.”
According to the report, “President Buhari should require the Ministry of Health to make public quarterly budget execution reports, and expenditure reports.
“It is also important for the government to fully implement the Freedom of Information Act, including by enforcing the judgment of the Federal High Court ordering the government to publish information on the spending of recovered stolen public funds since the return of democracy in 1999.”
SERAP is also calling on “the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami, SAN to refer other pervasive allegations of corruption in the health sector for investigation by the EFCC and the ICPC and instruct appropriate anticorruption commissions and agencies to promptly conclude any pending investigations on corruption in the spending of budget allocations and international aids to the ministry of health.
“Mr Malami should proactively launch and follow through investigations into credible allegations of corruption in the Ministry of Health.
“He should investigate other pervasive allegations of corruption in the health sector in greater depth and promptly and satisfactorily conclude any pending investigations on corruption in the spending of budget allocations and international aids to the ministry.”
“The government should also move to recognize the right to health as legally enforceable human right and ratify the optional protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights that would allow individual victims access to international accountability mechanism for effective remedies; and to incorporate the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the domestic legal order to enable court adjudicate cases of violations of the right to health.”