Human Rights Under African Constitutions: Realizing the Promise for Ourselves by Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im

Author:Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im [An-Na'im, Abdullahi Ahmed]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Law, Constitutional, Political Science, Civil Rights, Comparative Politics, Human Rights
ISBN: 9780812236774
Google: dTEiAQAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 303897
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: 2002-12-19T00:00:00+00:00

Legal Framework and Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights

It is necessary for an understanding of the protection of human rights in Nigeria to highlight major landmarks in the constitutional history of the country. There are four stages. The first is the colonial period up to independence in 1960. The second stage is from independence to the first military intervention on January 15, 1996; the third, to the end of military rule on May 29, 1999; and finally, the stage of the implementation of the constitutional framework under the current elected civilian government.

The Colonial Period

The importance of this period in the constitutional history of Nigeria is underscored by the wide impact of colonialism on the postindependence legal and political systems. It seems a legal misnomer to speak of a “constitution” under the colonial regimes, because a constitution is, strictly speaking, the basic law of people developed by them for the social, political, and legal administration of their society. A colonial society cannot, therefore, develop a “constitution” per se. However, the term “constitution” is used loosely in this context to mean the fundamental or basic law for the arrangement of the political order.

The first constitution of 1914 established the formal colonial political structures and amalgamated the Southern and Northern Protectorates into the Nigeria state.6 Laws were made for the colonies by the British imperial government and administered through the colonial administrators in Nigeria. The 1914 constitution established the legislative council, the executive under the governor general, and the judiciary. Under the judiciary, three classes of courts were established, namely the Supreme Court, the provincial courts, and the native courts. The Supreme Court was the highest within the colony, but its decisions could be appealed to the West African Court of Appeal (WACA), then serving British colonies in the West Africa region. Final appeals went to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council sitting in London. The provincial and native courts were staffed by colonial district administrative officers who exercised both executive and judicial functions.7 The legislative house, composed mainly of colonial administrators, had only advisory jurisdiction, as the power to make laws for the colony was in the imperial government of Britain.

In 1922, the colonial government introduced a new constitution to broaden the legislative house. Limited franchise rights and legislative seats were granted to the indigenous peoples. Of the forty-six seats in the Legislative Council, nineteen were elected from the local population and the others were colonial officials.8 The political and legal structures remained as they were under the 1914 constitution.

Growing agitation in Nigeria and Britain for greater participation of colonized people in the affairs of the colonies, particularly on the heels of World War I, forced the colonial government to introduce a new constitution in 1946, which increased the number of legislative seats for Nigerians to a majority. This constitution also decentralized governance by dividing the country into northern, eastern, and western regions. The heads of the regional governments were elected from the natives. The division into regions was clearly along major ethnic groupings of Hausa, Ibo, and Yoruba.

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