The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has disagreed with the ruling by the Court of Appeal, insisting that failure of the government to take measures to stop environmental pollution is a human right violation.
The national coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, in a press release Monday said environmental damage caused by pollution impedes the enjoyment of the constitutionally guaranteed fundamental human rights and therefore amounts to a human right abuse.
The group said in virtually all legal jurisprudence, environmental pollution left untreated by the government constitutes gross human rights violations.
HURIWA recalled that the Court of Appeal in Abuja, last Friday, prohibited the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) from constituting a Special Panel of Investigation to entertain or determine complaints regarding alleged oil spillages and oil pollution in Nigeria.
This perpetual prohibition order was issued in a judgment delivered by Justice Okong Abang of the Court of Appeal, who upheld the appeal filed by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC)’s lawyer, Olurotimi Aju Esq., against the NHRC.
The case was marked CA/A/864/2018.
The appellant, dissatisfied with the decision of the Federal High Court, Abuja Division, delivered by Justice Binta Nyako on March 23, 2018, which had affirmed NHRC’s powers to investigate and issue orders regarding oil spillage complaints, sought a reversal.
The judge stated that judicial power under the 1999 constitution is not vested in the National Human Rights Commission and its panels, but in the courts established by the constitution.