Human Rights In Nigeria S External Relations In The Age Of General Muhammadu Buhari And His Successors

Under the Fourth Republic since 1999, the challenge Nigerian leaders face like never before is how to create a state that matches the expectations of their diverse peoples at home and abroad. Taking this proposition as starting point, this book advances proposals for a human-right policy, referred to alternately in the work as principled foreign policy, for Nigeria under the Fourth Republic, taking advantage of the inestimable opportunity afforded by General Muhammadu Buhari’s departure from the political scene on May 29, 2023, after the famine, domestically and externally, wrought by his two terms of office as President. It is a broad-ranging argument, draped in the less arcane constitutional vocabulary and material of human rights, for thoroughgoing reforms at home and abroad as the only antidote to the nation-building dilemmas Nigeria confronts in the first quarter of the twenty-first century. Buhari’s departure marks the end of military teleguidance of Nigerian politics under the Fourth Republic in the camouflage of democratic rule, a birthmark of remote control dating back to the first military intervention in the country in January 1966. These momentous events within Nigeria coincide with equally epoch-making developments in the UK, Nigeria’s former colonial overlord, with ripple effects in Nigeria, signified by the death of Queen Elizabeth II, after seven decades on the throne, and the emergence of Prince Charles as King of England. A new monarch in Britain adds to the opportunity that falls open for the reconfiguration of Nigeria’s external relations with ramifications for the application of human rights in those relations. Despite its known disabilities, Nigeria has the potential infrastructure, including its sizable population, to conduct a human-right policy, if its leaders rationalize the country’s resources more wisely.

This book is a broad-ranging argument for thorough reforms at home and abroad in Nigeria as the only antidote to the nation-building dilemmas Nigeria confronts in the first quarter of the twenty-first century. Because of its enormous material and human endowments, Nigeria is dubbed the “Giant of Africa.” It is a moniker many of its leaders take seriously. Yet, Nigeria is a state rife with instability, some of it periodically erupting into violence. Given still-ongoing national security challenges in the land that notoriously includes a bloody religion-oriented terrorism, the Fourth Republic since 1999, the longest period of continuous democratic rule since independence—key to the timeline of this book—has not been insulated from the spell of instability. The main argument of this work is that internationally agreed-upon ethical standards embedded in human rights can save Nigeria. This book is a methodologically and theoretically-grounded, seminal discourse on Nigerian foreign relations that spells out the human rights or lack thereof in those relations, including underlying and impinging domestic forces. This work is set around six issues of application embedded in a temple of Nigeria’s human rights foreign policy, comprising two steps and four pillars: reconstructed national interest, increased human rights at home, redesigned peacekeeping, reshaped foreign policy machinery, increased bilateralism in foreign relations, and the use of ECOWAS as human rights tool. Although focused on the period since independence, for proper understanding of events from the past that shape the current patterns of politics in the land, this book also embodies a historical background chapter that overviews the pre-colonial and colonial eras.

This study of the state of media law in Nigeria contains analyses of the interplay of law, politics, the economy and other social factors on the state of freedom of expression. Juxtaposed are the regime of media law and regulations, judicial interpretation of these laws, the existing environment for the realisation of freedom of expression and the associated general political, social and economic environment. Critical attention is given to the various enactments regulating freedom of expression and the provisions on freedom of expression in the 1963, 1979 and 1999 Constitutions of Nigeria. How national media laws compare with international treaties and how regulators influence media contents, are also examined. The book is addressed to a wide audience: mass communication and law students, lecturers and teachers in tertiary institutions offering relevant courses, legal practitioners, journalists and those working in the field of mass communication, human rights and political activists, politicians and party bureaucracies, policy makers, researchers and experts in think tanks.

Attempts to Import Weapons

Nigeria is mired in a crisis of governance. For decades, Nigeria's governing elite have been widely implicated in acts of violence, corruption and electorial fraud so pervasive as to resemble criminal activity more han democratic governance. Not only has Nigeria's federal government failed to hold these politicians to account, but Nigeria's system of politics has actively rewarded corruption and violence with control governorships, parliamentary seats and other positions of public trust.

An introduction to the politics and society of post-colonial Nigeria, highlighting the key themes of ethnicity, democracy, and development.

Looks at how Nigeria's political parties compete for power in a context of transition, terrorism, and religious and ethnic tension.