SERAP Drags FG to ECOWAS Court over Suffering of Displaced Persons
The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has dragged the federal government to the Economic Community of West African State (ECOWAS) Community Court in Abuja over what it described as the “immense suffering of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) across the country.”
Among the defendants is the Attorney General of the Federation, Mohammed Adoke.
In the suit, with the number ECW/CCJ/APP/15/15, filed last week by the councel to SERAP, Femi Falana (SAN), the plaintiff alleged: “Serious violations by the defendants of the human rights of the IDPs to life, health, adequate housing, personal integrity, privacy, fair trial, freedom of movement and residence, judicial guarantees, private property and child rights guaranteed by the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of IDPs in Africa; and Principles 1-30 of the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement.”
According to the suit, “The response by the Nigerian government to the conditions of IDPs is fragmented and inadequate, as illustrated by defendants’ closure of several displacement camps in central and northern areas of Nigeria. Those living in camps are often left without enough food, essential household items or health facilities.
“The increased vulnerability of IDPs across Nigeria demands accountability and greater level of respect for the full and effective realisation and enjoyment of IDPs rights in Nigeria. The ‘crisis of security’ created by forced internal displacement leaves IDPs unprotected, with women and children disproportionately affected.
“This condition of special vulnerability creates an obligation for the Nigerian government to adopt positive measures to ensure protection and security for IDPs, even when the displacement is caused by the actions of third parties.
“The Nigerian government has continued to fail and/or neglect to respect, protect, fulfil and promote the human rights of IDPs among others failing to meet their protection and assistance needs, including social and work relations, and their family dynamics, to provide health facilities to meet their physical and mental health needs. The Nigerian government has also failed to systematically assess the conditions and situation of the IDPs across the country. In other words, the Nigerian government has failed to exercise due diligence and to act proactively to assist IDPs, many of whom do not have a home to go back to.”
“The plaintiff contends that the origins, complexity and manifestations of the IDP crisis in Nigeria need to be placed within the context of a larger human rights problem in the country.”
“The human rights challenges posed by internal displacement in Nigeria shows that the Nigerian government is failing to meet its clear obligations and commitments under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and other international instruments highlighted above.”
It added that: “The plaintiff contends that the right not to be forcibly displaced is a key component of the right to freedom of movement and residence. The plaintiff also argues that the vulnerable condition of IDPs is a violation of the right to personal integrity.
The plaintiff contends that internal displacement entails massive, systematic and prolonged violations of several human rights, thus preventing IDPs from leading a ‘dignified life’. This is an expanded interpretation of the ‘right to life’, thereby broadening the nature of protection from mere relatives.
“It is hereby submitted that under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights to which Nigeria is a signatory, the defendants have individually and collectively violated the human rights of IDPs to life, to health, to adequate housing, to personal integrity, to privacy, to fair trial, to freedom of movement and residence, to judicial guarantees, to private property and child rights.”
The plaintiff therefore asked the ECOWAS Court of justice for the following reliefs: “A declaration that the failure and/or lack of due diligence by Nigerian government to proactively and effectively implement and promote IDP policies and allocate sufficient resources to IDP protection and the corresponding failure to effectively address the magnitude of the problem, is unlawful as it constitutes serious breaches of Nigeria’s human rights obligations under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Right; the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa and other international human rights treaties to which Nigeria is a state party.
“That the failure and/or lack of due diligence by the Nigerian government to proactively pursue the rehabilitation of surviving victims and the corresponding continuing exposure of victims to violence, abuse, marginalisation, impoverishment and social disarticulation caused by their loss of residence, property and livelihood is unlawful as it violates the right to life, and to the security; dignity of the human person, and the right to health guaranteed under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights
“That the conditions faced by IDPs in Nigeria are inhumane and degrading and therefore unlawful as they amount to serious breaches of the international obligations and commitments of the Defendants to provide an effective remedy to victims of human rights violations, and finding the Nigerian government responsible for these human rights violations, among other.”