International and National Laws at Crossroads: Interrogating the Applicability of Selected Human Rights Instruments and the Quandary of Enforcement in Nigeria

Abstract

This article analyses selected international instruments and the quandaries regarding their 
application and implementation in the international arena, especially at the African Court on 
Human and Peoples' Rights (Court) and Human Rights Committee as well as within the Nigerian 
regulatory environment. The article, adopting the doctrinal methodology of research, finds that 
individual citizens of Nigeria do not have the competence to file applications before the Court for 
purposes of seeking redress regarding the violation of the rights enshrined in the African Charter on 
Human and Peoples' Rights 1981 owing to the fact that Nigeria is yet to make the requisite 
declaration that would otherwise give individual Nigerian nationals the competence to file cases in 
the Court and grant it jurisdiction to entertain such cases in accordance with the provisions of 
articles 5(3) and 34 (6) of the Protocol on the Establishment of the African Court on Human and 
Peoples' Rights. Similarly, Nigeria has neither signed nor ratified the (First) Optional Protocol to 
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) 1966 and the Second Optional 
Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Aiming at the Abolition of 
Death Penalty 1990. The prescriptive implication of this state of affairs is that individual Nigerians 
are precluded from filing complaints before the Human Rights Committee and it lacks jurisdiction 
to receive and consider communications from individuals claiming to be victims of violations of 
the rights enshrined in the ICCPR and the Optional Protocols. This article therefore makes a case 
for the ratification of relevant instruments and the expeditious recalibration of the Nigerian legal 
regime to foster a more effective, sustainable, accountable and transparent regulatory environment 
and to engender the realisation of the rights enshrined in regional and international human rights 
instruments for the benefit of Nigerian citizens.