A critical report exposing the illicit procedure adopted by the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria sent to the New York Head office of the International Human Rights Commission (IHRC) has been received by H.E Dr. Tivlumun Innocent Ahure, the Director General Global of the Commission. The reviews stressed that though the Nigerian Senate has the right to sanction any erring Senator, the hasty manner in which Senator Abdul Ningi was suspended for alleging N3.7 trillion padding into 2024 budget raises a credibility question against the upper chamber of the National Assembly. In the report which was signed by the IHRC-Nigeria Country Director, Ambassador Abdullahi Bakoji Adamu, a submission that the Senate as a democratic institution should have followed due process and diligence before meting out the punishment on the Distinguished Senator was canvassed.
Ambassador Adamu, said the Nigerian Senate decided to throw out the principles of freedom of expression, fairness and transparency to the dogs because rather than ask Senator Ningi to substantiate his claim, the Senate leadership preferred to be intolerant and insensitive to the demand for openness in governance matters, especially in the most serious of all, which is the instrument of budget, on which public service delivery is anchored.
IHRC-Nigeria condemns this high handedness by the Senate in the strongest term because it shows that the senate is not willing to respect rights of the citizens or their representatives to question its actions or inactions. Reviewing the report, Dr. Tivlumun Innocent Ahure pointed out that the concern of the IHRC as an intergovernmental organization is to protect people against violation of their human rights either by government, its agencies, corporate bodies or individuals because the IHRC views the undemocratic suspension of Senator Ningi by the Senate as capable of building tension that can snowball into violation of the rights of the citizens. What has naturally followed the Senate’s arbitrariness is the suffocation of the rule of law without which protection of human rights are unattainable.
Mindful of this, the IHRC-Nigeria joins other civil society organizations in Nigeria in calling on the Senate to rescind its decision on Senator Ningi and allow for a thorough investigation of the budget padding issue. It shouldn’t be swept under the carpet. Freedom of Information Act (FOI) could be invoked to get to the root of the matter and citizens and CSOs can leverage on FOI to follow up on Senator Ningi’s budget padding allegation. If it turns out to be false, Ningi should be made to face the consequences of ‘malicious’ statements which might have put the Senate in disrepute. The IHRC Director General Global urged that the Executive Arm of the government would allow for free and fair investigation into the imbroglio between the Senate and Senator Ningi on the budget padding issue, otherwise a case of complicity will be hanging on it, and that will of course damage its image in the eyes of the international community.
An extra issue also is that if the citizens decide to take the matter to court, the court will dispense justice on the merit of the case brought before it. In taking this position on the undemocratic and irrational suspension of Senator Ningi by the Senate over his budget padding allegation, the IHRC-Nigeria is guided by Articles 16 and 21 of the Universal Declration on Human Rights (UDHR) which respectfully gurantee that citizens have the rights to challenge their government in court if it violates their rights AND if it denies them participation in the democratic process. The IHRC-Nigeria has been always been standing by the truth no matter whose axe is gored.