Falana Folarin also known as Falzthebahdguy has written an open letter to President Buhari on the issue of the reconstitution of the Human Rights Commission Governing Council.
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This is contained in a letter written to the President which was made available to TheNigeriaLawyer, titled “REQUEST FOR RECONSTITUTION OF THE GOVERNING COUNCIL OF THE NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION FOR THE DISCHARGE OF ITS FUNCTIONS WITH RESPECT TO CASES OF HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN NIGERIA.”
Recall that President Buhari has, via the statement of his Special Adviser on Media, Femi Adesina, accepted the 5-point request of the #ENDSARS protest including setting up an independent panel to investigate human rights abuses.
Falz said the panel is unnecessary. He said, “Section 5 of the National Human Rights Commission (Amendment) Act 2010 empowers the Human Rights Commission itself to receive complaints and investigate all alleged cases of human rights violations in Nigeria and make appropriate recommendations to the president.
“The detailed and concise provisions of this Section adequately empower the Human Rights Commission to look into these cases by itself. The Commission need not set up another panel for the exercise of its functions.”
Furthermore, Falz quoted section 2 of the Human Rights Commission Act, saying that the Commission ought to have a Governing Council to include:
“(a) a chairman who shall be a retired Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria or the Court of Appeal or a retired judge of the High Court of a State;
(b) a representative each of the following Federal Ministries—
(i) Justice;
(ii) Foreign Affairs;
(iii) Internal Affairs;
(c) three representatives of registered human rights organisations in Nigeria;
(d) two legal practitioners who shall not have less than ten years post qualification experience;
(e) three representatives of the media, at least, two of whom shall be from the private sector;
(f) three other persons to represent a variety of interests; and (g) the executive secretary of the Commission.”
According to him, the Commission has been without a Governing Council since 2015 contrary to the above provision leading to “the aggravation of human rights abuse.”
Falz added that by section 7(3) of the Act, the Executive Secretary lacks the power to Act without a Governing Council.
He, therefore, called on President Buhari to immediately re-constitute the Governing Council without bias so as to restore the confidence of young Nigerians in his proposed police reform. According to him, failure to do that will force young Nigerians to believe that his efforts to reform the police is not genuine.
“in the light of the foregoing, I hereby call on Your Excellency to immediately re-constitute the Governing Council of the National Human Rights Commission and to do so publicly as well as transparently in order to restore the confidence of young Nigerians in your proposed police reform process.
“Failure to do this would force young Nigerians to believe that the continuous refusal to re-constitute the Governing Council of the National Human Rights Commission is a deliberate attempt to mislead us into thinking genuine efforts are being made at reforming the Nigerian Police when in truth the opposite is the case.
“I am confident that Your Excellency will grant my humble request to guarantee the protection of the fundamental human rights of all Nigerians.” the letter reads
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