The Prison Rehabilitaton And Welfare Action (PRAWA) has restated the need for the federal government to implement the treaty against torture in Nigeria.
Its Director Uju Agomuh, made the call during a two day consultative workshop for government agencies on the report of the UN committee against torture in Nigeria, organised with support from the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCTC) and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in Abuja.
Agomuh expressed concerns on the failure of the Nigerian government to present its report before the United Nations (UN) at the just concluded report review in Geneva, stressing that this didn’t give the country a good image at the international community.
She however, maintained that lamenting won’t solve the problem, saying the better way to salvage the situation was to implement the recommendation given from the report of Nigeria by the UN.
“The first failure is the failure of not reporting. We are hoping that this will be a trend that we should revert as a nation because it doesn’t look good. We want people to be more aware of that document, more importantly what can be done to begin this recommendations,” she said.
“It will be more dignifying for Nigeira to accept these recommendations and start looking on how to work on it. The implication will be more when we do not comply and I think it is doable.
“Every focus of ours now is to see that those recommendations are implemented. We can no longer stay doing nothing.Nigeria failed to submit a report which is a failure in terms of compliant with article 19,which is the reporting obligation of that same instrument,” she added.
Responding, the chairman, Nigerian Law Reform, Professor Jummai Audi, noted that Nigeria is currently bedeviled with political, security, economic challenges bedeviling, stressing however the need for government to implement the recommendations and take a positive lead in order to bridge the already existing gaps.
“The role of the executive arm of government working in tandem with key stakeholders in implementing the recommendations as required by the UN treaty.
“Our mandate is to reform the law and submit to the Minister, this requires political will, we cannot push more than that, we do not make the law, these are problems in the law which affects the society.
“Government should look at these recommendations submitted,take a position, lead and be there for us. This is a political issue,” she said.
Earlier, the Comptroller General of the Nigerian Correctional Service, Haliru Nababa, said the treaty makes torture a criminal offence, recalling that since 2013 stakeholders have continue to talk about it with no headway.
Represented by Sunday Ogundipe Adegboyega of the Correctional Service, he emphasised the need to work in line with the regulations of the treaty such as decongestion of the prisons.
“Alot have been done to decongest the prisons. We are putting in place other measures that will allow for that and that is why we have made provisions for non-custodians measures,” he said.
