The Right To Self Determination And The Extent Of Its Enforceability Under Nigerian Legal System By Eniye Alex Igbanibo

The right to self-determination is a fundamental human right recognized and guaranteed under various international law regimes. One of such international laws that guarantee the right to self-determination is the African Charter on Human and People’s Right.

This Charter is binding on state parties and Nigeria is one of the state parties to this charter. The Federal Government of Nigeria has however gone a step further to domestic the Charter as the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act. The implication of this domestication is that the provisions of the Charter as domesticated forms a part of Nigerian municipal laws and can be enforced accordingly.

Article 20(1) of the aforementioned Act provides expressly that all people shall have an unquestionably and inalienable right to self-determination. The question that readily comes to mind is what does the right to self-determination entail and how can this right, which is regarded as unquestionable and inalienable be exercised?.

Self-determination has been defined as the fundamental right of every people to freely determine their own political status and to freely pursue their own social economic and cultural development. Determining one’s political status means one can decide whether or not to continue to be part of a political entity. The right to self-determination of a people as guaranteed under the aforementioned Act simply means a people within an independent political entity can decide or freely determine whether to continue to be a part of the independent political entity or not. The Act, in a further effort to state the importance of this right on the one hand, and the need for an unrestricted exercise of this right on the other hand has qualified this right as inalienable and unquestionable. The Act in Article 1 further places an obligation on the Federal Republic of Nigeria to take measures to ensure the enforcement of the rights guaranteed under the Act, one of which as already stated is the right to self-determination.

As sufficiently couched as the provisions of this Act seems in relation to the right to self-determination, it appears the right to self-determination Of a people can only be exercised exhaustively in relation to social and economic status and can only be exercised in relation to determining political status to the extend that it does not lead to or result in the division or secession of a part of Nigeria. This is because Section 2(1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as Amended states that Nigeria is one indivisible and indissoluble sovereign state. This clearly means that Nigeria is a sovereign state that cannot be split or divided into parts neither can any part of or group of people in Nigeria seced from Nigeria. This provision of the constitution cannot be ignored as Sections 1 of the constitution states clearly that the constitution is the supreme law of the land that is the grundnorm in Nigeria. The constitution goes further in Section 3 to explain the extent of the supremacy of the constitution stating that in the event of any inconsistency between the constitution and any other law, the constitution shall prevail and the other law shall be null and void to the extent of the inconsistency.

The right to self-determination under Article 20 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act is clearly inconsistent with the provisions of section 2 of the 1999 Constitution as Amended to the extent that it guarantees a right to self determination of political status, the exercise of which will result in a division, if not dissolution of the sovereign entity called Nigeria.

In the light of this inconsistency, the right to self determination does not exist and is inexercisable in Nigeria and if recognised and exercised will only be at cost of sacrificing the supremacy of the constitution on the altar of upholding international obligations under Article 1 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Right (Ratification and Domestication) Act.

Eniye Alex Igbanibo is a legal practitioner based in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State. You can reach her @ Email: Eniyeigbanibo@gmail.com