Nigeria’s human rights record ‘very poor’, worse than average in sub-Saharan Africa

The report, which tracked the human rights performance of most countries, stated that Nigeria’s mismanagement of resources is largely responsible for the country’s rarely improving human rights crises.

Nigeria’s human rights record is “very poor” and is “worse than [the] average in sub-Saharan Africa,” a new report by an international organisation states.

The Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI) said, in the report, that Nigeria’s score for economic and social rights falls within a ‘very bad’ range.

The report, which tracked the human rights performance of most countries, stated that Nigeria’s mismanagement of resources is largely responsible for the country’s unfortunate human rights crises.

“Millions of Nigerians could have better lives,” HRMI said in the report made public on Thursday. “If Nigeria were to operate at its full potential given its current resources, we would expect an additional 12 million children under five to grow well and not be stunted.

“If Nigeria were operating at best practice, we would expect an extra 3.6 million additional children to reach their fifth birthday,” HRMI said.

It also noted that if Nigeria used its resources efficiently, an additional 122 million people could have access to basic sanitation and an extra 143 million people could have access to water on site.

The HRMI 2021 ‘Rights Tracker” is the first global report to assess the 13 different human rights contained in United Nations treaties for around 200 countries.

The report adopted two different methods for appraising a country’s performance; with the first benchmark being ‘income adjusted.’

Using the income adjusted benchmark, the report compared countries with other countries of a similar income level, to evaluate how effectively each country is using its available resources.