AFRICAN COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS SETS TO RETURN JUSTICE TO AFRICA

By Emmanuel Kelechi Emma (Abia writers)

Edited by Livingrich Ezeikpe
In recent years, the citizens of many African countries have been under siege, their fundamental human rights have not been respected. In Nigeria, for instance, the rights of the citizens are trampled upon, citizens are subdued and subjected to “suffering and smiling”. The lives of the Indigenous people of Biafra, (IPOB) and her leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, are constantly threatened, especially during this period of their struggle for the restoration of Biafra. The exercise of these fundamental rights have resulted in millions of IPOB members being killed by the Nigerian government in the process.

Today, it is a thing of happiness that the African commission on human and people’s rights (ACHPR) has come to restore the rights that have been taken away from them the African citizens.

In a landmark ruling on March 8, 2018, the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights (ACHPR) issued a ruling against President Buhari to cease and desist from taking any "further actions" against Nnamdi Kanu, IPOB and its members, pending when the Commission renders final decision on a Complaint filed on behalf of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and IPOB.

The ruling, which the Commission called 'provisional measures', emanated from a Complaint filed by Barrister Aloy Ejimakor of Adulbert Legal Services on behalf of Nnamdi Kanu and IPOB on December 14, 2017. The Complaint placed three main issues for the consideration of the Commission, to wit, Nnamdi Kanu's trial, Operation Python Dance and its aftermaths in the Southeast of Nigeria including the military invasion of Nnamdi Kanu's family home in Umuahia, and declaration of IPOB as a terrorist organization.

The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, which reports to the African Union (AU) is a quasi-judicial body tasked with promoting and protecting human rights and collective rights throughout the African continent as well as interpreting the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and adjudication of individual complaints brought before the Commission against member States. Nigeria is a member State and has also ratified the African Charter, which all together makes her subject to the jurisdiction of ACHPR.

In the ruling, the Commission also stated that it “has assumed jurisdiction to adjudicate the IPOB Complaint, and gave President Buhari 15 days to respond with actions he has taken to implement the provisional measures ordered by the Commission”. On a rather ominous note, the Commission wrote that if the allegations in the Complaint prove to be correct, they would amount to gross violations of the African Charter "as well as other regional and international human rights laws and standards".

With this ruling and the expectation that Buhari is duty-bound to implement it, Nnamdi Kanu, IPOB and its members have been vindicated, at least as far as the declaration that IPOB is a terrorist organization now appears to be on hold, until such a time the Commission has rendered its final decision. With this, the Indigenous people of Biafra and her leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is set to experience the legal rights that the federal republic of Nigeria and her president Muhammadu Buhari have forcefully taken away from them.

The prayers of the masses remains that the good Lord who has made this group to rise in defense of the people's right, will not allow any corruption to remember them, that together we shall restore the kingdom of God on planet earth. Amen