…Appeals for more funding in 2025
The Executive Secretary of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Mr Anthony Ojukwu, on Monday, disclosed that the Commission completed eight new offices nationwide in the 2024 fiscal year.
Ojukwu, who made this disclosure in Abuja during the 2025 budget defence with the National Assembly joint Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, also noted that the Commission would require more funding to be able to operate more effectively in the year 2025.
He pointed out that the major challenge of the Commission was a barrage of complaints of human rights violations emanating from insurgency, terrorism and herders/farmers clashes across the country.
According to him, the Commission received well over two million complaints in one year, noting that it would be difficult for the establishment to address such numerous cases with the meagre resources available to it.
His words: “The budget defence went well because we were able to explain how we implemented the 2024 budget in very clear terms.
“We were able to complete eight (8) new offices nationwide. It’s unprecedented, considering the meagre resources we have. We were also able to propose a new budget of N19.5 billion, though we only got N8 billion. So, we are praying for assistance, to see whether the government can help us further to see that we have all the resources we need.
“The nature of the National Human Rights Commission is that we are under the Consolidated Revenue Fund Statutory Transfer. So, whatever we are given has to be released a hundred per cent. You know the Commission was established as a result of a United Nations Resolution.
“So, it’s not an ordinary agency. The rule requires that we are independent in our work and as well financially independent. What that means is that we are under statutory transfer, and whatever money the government gives to us is released a hundred per cent.
“The major challenge of the Commission is that as a result of the insurgency, terrorism, herders/farmers clashes and other human rights violations, we receive well over two million complaints a year, and the resources we have now cannot go far.
“If you use barely N8000 for one complaint investigation, you know how much it will cost to investigate two million complaints. It means you need N16 billion. But we are given eight billion.
“So, you can imagine the enormity of the mathematics you have to do to be able to make eight billion be enough for an assignment of sixteen billion. That’s the challenge we have.
“We have handled over 80% of the human rights violations we have had. But the other ones are ongoing.”
