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Wednesday, July 3, 2013

National Mirror: Enforcing our socio-economic rights

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National Mirror
All the Facts | All the Sides
Enforcing our socio-economic rights
Jul 3rd 2013, 23:02, by KAYODE KETEFE

Imagine a condition where every Nigerian has access to good and qualitative education, adequate means of livelihood, infinite opportunities for suitable employment, where conditions of work are just and humane, where facilities for leisure, social, religious and cultural life are taken for granted.

Imagine also a situation where the various governments provide adequate medical and health facilities for all persons; where there is equal pay for equal work for all regardless of sex, or any other grounds whatsoever; where children, young persons and the aged are protected against any form of exploitation and neglect. Such a paradisiacal existence may be difficult for many Nigerians giving our lifelong experience with comprehensive poverty and privations, both products of protracted maladministration and corruption.

Not many Nigerians also know that the conditions described above, utopian as they may seem, are not just delusive emanations of my imagination, but expressly provided for under Chapter Two of the 1999 Constitution. Actually, I have quoted from chapters 17 and 18, which are just a part of the section tagged 'Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy'.

If the President and governors swore to uphold our Constitution, why do successive governments deprive Nigerians of all these blessings? Recently, Mr. Akinwunmi Adesina , Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development affirmed that 13 million Nigerians are under the pangs of hunger and malnutrition. Many Nigerians would regard the figure to have been understated. The answer to the above question lies in Section 6 subsection 6 (c) of the Constitution.

It renders Chapter Two nonjusticiable; that is to say no Nigerian has the right to go to court to enforce them. Some stakeholders have been calling for the expulsion of section 6 (6) (c) from the constitution over the years to ensure that the chapter shall become enforceable just like other parts of the constitution. The argument of the anti-enforcement proponents has always been that making such socio-economic rights enforceable could lead to deluge of cases, and this could weigh down the administration of justice machinery.

But this argument could be countered by the proposition that a special fast track procedure could be fashioned out to make cases under the chapter expeditiously disposable. Conversely, the proponents of "enforceability theory" would scoff at the idea that the conditions painted in the constitution cannot be created. They would readily point to billions of naira that had been and are still being siphoned from the national treasury by corrupt politicians as money that could have been deployed towards the ends of Chapter Two of the Constitution.

Well, there may be some truth in the argument that wealth can only be created and cannot be legislated into existence, and therefore, Nigerians could not start to enjoy all those wonderful provisions of Chapter Two simply because they were inserted into the constitution; that there must be underlying economic realities that would make the dream feasible. Yes, but the pertinent questions are "Is the government doing enough? Should the government say because it cannot make provisions on everything provided in that chapter, it should just ignore them altogether?"

My take on this is, make "monumental breach" of the Chapter Two an impeachable offence! Under Section 143 of the 1999 constitution, the president and governors are impeachable only when they are guilty of "gross misconduct."

The Constitution should be amended to provide that any president or governor guilty of "monumental breach" of the socio-economic rights enshrined in Chapter Two should be impeached. This could mean that federal and state legislatures would convene a special session at the end of every year to evaluate and assess the executives' commitment to the implementation of the provisions of Chapter Two; and if they are adjudged to have been guilty of "monumental neglect" of this chapter, impeachment proceedings should be commenced against them.

A foolproof alternative mechanism should also be instituted to check situation where the lawmakers, out of cozy relationship, undeservedly give the president or governor a pass mark. The remedy is to insert provisions making the legislatures' annual assessment open to the public to allow civil society organization initiate court actions for a declaration that the president or governor is guilty of monumental breach, whereupon the court, upon finding so, would remove the president and order fresh election within 90 days.

The Senate President shall fill the void in the interim. There should be a corollary provision that there could only be one such case every year from human right organisations.

This would stem the fear of a deluge of cases anticipated from enforceability of such rights as there would only be a single case in a year. The implementation of the suggestion here would at least put a stop to the present culture of monumental neglect of Nigerians' socio-economic rights.

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