NHRC Launches Dashboard and Human rights Observatory
By Genesis Ogiri, Abuja
Tuesday NEWSWAY reports that The Senior human rights adverser to the Executive Secretary of the Commission, Mr.Hillary Ogbonna who made the disclosure during a media interaction with Newsmen in Abuja.
According to Hillary, the idea of developing the dashboard and Human rights Observatory is to make system monitoring, reporting and analysis of incident data possible and to ensure accountability .
He said The key facts about Dashboard is monthly reporting analysis and graphics presentation of the human rights situation in Nigeria, while human rights Observatory will capture reporting, monitoring and data analysis of human rights incident that happened across Nigeria on daily basis. in regards to this there are 38 collection points across the Nation to monitor and report the cases. The monitoring, reporting and analysis will be supervised by our staff in Abuja, he added.
In doing this, the Commission is acting in line with its mandate as stated in Sections (5) of the NHRC Act of 2010 as amended”.
He said the commission is saddle with responsibility to publish and summit situation report to the government and to collect data, disseminate information and material from Human rights generally from time to time to Nigeria .
“The focus of the Dashboard will be primarily targeted at reports of the human rights issues, accuracy of data and analysis of the complaints that will be reported in our call points, because violations of human rights is increasing day by day”.
Furthermore, Hillary stated that “the Human Rights Dashboard will report and publish across the 36 states and the FCT, complaints of human rights violations”.
“The commission is equipped with toll-free lines and short codes for easy and cost-free access to complaints by members of the public”.
" He said dashboard and human rights Observatory will improve the culture of the commission and to hold the government accountable.
“The NHRC is putting everything in place to ensure that Nigerians can have confidence that when they call their complaints will not go unheard”.
NHRC decries the rising cases of human rights violations in Nigeria. January 2024 situation dashboard showed that over 1147 cases of complaints were received across the 36 state including FCT.
Mr. Hillary while given the break down of the figure Said 67% represent 528 complaints were on domestic violence , follow by violations by state actor which account for 11% or 84 , private sector actor 6% represent 64 , Economic , social and cultural right violations 64 complaints which representing 8%, and the violations of rights to life is 5% which account for 40
"The total of human rights violations occured largely in Abuja with the total number of 382 cases of rights violations , 86 North Central, Nort west 118 , South- south 75, Northeast 66
"Kidnapping cases was on rampaged in the Month of January especially the violence cases in plateau state and the saddened case of traditional ruler in Ekiti state
"He noted that 125 kidnapped cases were recorded and 56 Killings , 10 children were tortured, 22 children were kidnapped and 12 children were killed
The worst rights violations in the country included, “Recurring mass atrocities and crimes, kidnappings, incessant extra-judicial killings and torture, inhuman and degrading treatment, discrimination, injustice and gross inequalities, rape, sexual and gender based violence, and above all, impunity, weak institutions and lack of political will to hold perpetrators accountable for several types of human rights violations.”
NHRC lamented that economic and physical reforms were introduced, specifically, the removal of fuel subsidy, this has brought dynamics in Nigeria social and economic structure leading to the increasing inequalities and hardship to the ordinary citizens across board. Nigeria has experienced multi- dimensional poverty.
This is a commitments require to protect human rights and to report on the progress made in ensuring these protections are in place. Accurate data on human rights is essential, both for reliable reporting and to meet international commitments.
