Today (December 10, 2012), the world marks the Human Rights Day, commemorating the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Very importantly, this year’s theme is “Inclusion and the right to participate in public life.”
The theme brings to focus an aspect of human rights often taken for granted. Under Article 21(1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.” Simply put, we are talking about democracy as human right.
What is more, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, guarantees every person the right to vote and be elected, and to have access to public service, as well as to free expression, assembly and association.
In Nigeria, we have since May 1999 embraced democracy, even if nominally or superficially. To the extent that every four years, we conduct elections into federal and state government positions (presidency, governorship, national and state legislatures), we can lay claim to compliance with these human rights. But Nigeria’s democracy is yet to fully trickle to the local government level.
A recent newspaper investigation indicates that only the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and 17 out of 36 states have democratically-elected local government councils. The remaining 19 states are operating non-democratically elected local government administrations in breach of the provisions of the Constitution. This effectively denies about half of the country’s citizens the right to participate in their governments directly or through freely chosen representatives. It is totally unacceptable!
It must be stressed further that inclusion and right to participate in public life go beyond simply conducting elections, especially when the elections are more often than not described as ‘flawed’.
Public officials (whether elected or appointed) must recognise that citizens still reserve the right (and do legitimately demand) to be consulted in decision making, policy formulation and law making. To that extent, citizens must be consulted in the making and review of laws including the two most important laws, the Constitution and the budget.
While we are in the season of budget presentation, consideration and passage at federal and state levels, we are seeing very little involvement of citizens in the process. Many government officials involved in the process still suffer the hangover of the military era where laws (including budgets) were made by government officials, whimsically, for the people, irrespective of what the needs of the citizens were. This has to change by getting citizens involved right from the introduction and passage of the medium term expenditure framework (MTEF) and the budget itself.
But while there is limited involvement by citizens groups and civil society in law, budget and policy making at the federal level, the same cannot be said about the state level while it is nearly totally absent at the local government level.
Inclusion in decision making (including elections) must also recognise all the component groups in the society and provide them equal and equitable access. For instance, even though women make up half the population, they still form a small minority in government, both elected and appointed officers. It is even worse for persons with disability. The time is ripe now to take specific steps to provide such access, including reservation of positions for women and other excluded groups.
As we seek citizens’ participation, we must commend the resilience of the Nigerian citizens who have kept pushing for better involvement in decision making against all odds. In her statement to mark this year’s event, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay saluted the world citizens who in the last few years (this year especially), have stood up against their exclusionary governments through popular protests on streets and squares. We cannot but salute the ordinary Nigerians who began the year, standing up against government’s insensitive governance actions and still do so in many ways. While government’s responses have been marginally positive, it is evident that people-driven change is still possible. And this we must continue to push and support.
