…Assures To Increase 2025 Appropriation
The National Assembly (NASS) has decried annual lean appropriations to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), noting that with mere N5 billion budget allocation in 2024, it is difficult to take the Commission anywhere given the enormous responsibilities reposed on it.
Members of the House Committee on human rights led by its Deputy Chairman, Hon. Mudashiru Lukman, who were on oversight function at the Headquarters of the NHRC spoke to Journalists on Monday shortly after closed door meeting with management of the Commission led by the Executive Secretary, Dr. Tony Ojukwu SAN.
The House Committee had interacted with the NHRC management to verify how its 2024 budget was spent as well as to ascertain the challenges of the Commission on Friday.
Hon. Lukman who represented the House Committee Chairman, Hon. Peter Abiola Makinde, while fielding questions from Journalists, assured however that the National Assembly will increase the Commission’s budgetary allocation for the year, 2025 to enable it to fulfill its plans in the year.
According to him, “We noticed that the budget of the National Human Rights Commission is just too poor even the N5 billion that they allocated for them in the last appropriation year in 2024, we noticed that it cannot take them anywhere, if you do not want to say the truth.
“As the National Assembly, we have agreed to do our own quotas to make sure that the appropriation for 2025 is better than before. As you can see in Nigeria today, human rights issues are all over the states. So, this is what the National Assembly will not take lightly at all.
“We’ve been working and proposing some laws that will be embedded for the betterment of Nigerians which will help the Commission as well. We are moving some bills and some motions at the floor of the house just to support the commission too because we believe that with the success of the Commission, it will be to the benefit of all Nigerians.”
Earlier, the Executive Secretary of the NHRC, Dr. Ojukwu had enumerated the challenges confronting the commission, adding that the House Committee were on oversight function to be rendered account of how its 2024 budgetary allocation was utilized .
Ojukwu said: “We told them that our work is more of field works and that in order to do field work, that means you need resources to either move around in taxis or to have vehicles of your own. If you have vehicles of your own, you have to fuel it. You know what fuel is costing now, you have to maintain those vehicles and you need to have your own office because you need to maintain your independence.
“You also need to motivate staff because the staff who are involved in this field work, need lot of motivations because they need enormous when you go into the field. And they (House Committee) promised that they will look into our complaints.”
Ojukwu further indicated that apart from the existing challenges, there were other new responsibilities added to the Commission’s task which emerged last year.
According to Ojukwu, “Again, there are new challenges that have arisen that were not there last year. For instance, the federal government has approved a new national action plan for promotion and protection of human rights. This is a four year plan for implementation and that plan needs to be implemented.
“The federal government has also designated the National Human Rights Commission as the National Preventive Mechanism of Nigeria which is an obligation of Nigeria under the Optional Protocol to the convention against torture.
“These are all new assignments that were not there before and in addition, there is the new National Action Plan on business and human rights which Nigeria has subscribed to. All these are challenges which have been placed on the hands of the Commission and the Commission needs to lead the way, and the Commission needs to bail the country out as well as investigate any human rights violations that occur during the year.”
Ojukwu explained that experience had shown that without the support of the National Assembly, it would be difficult for the human rights commission to really perform its work because it needs legal instrument and funds with which to do the work.
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