NHRC condemns Senior Lawyers and others using HUMAN RIGHTS to shield corrupt people from prosecution and justice.

The National Human Rights Commission has "condemned senior lawyers and others in public service using human rights to shield corrupt people from prosecution and justice."

Ben Angwe, Executive Secretary of the Commission, said this at the launch of a report today at the Westown Hotels, Ikeja, Lagos. The report titled Health in decline: Human Rights Impacts of Corruption in Nigeria's Health Sector was launched by Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project in collaboration with the Ford Foundation.

Mr. Angwe who was represented by Wahab Oyedokun said that "The National Human Rights Commission believes that corruption is the biggest impediment to respect for human rights in Nigeria. We recognize that we have to fight corruption to ensure human rights. There is a problem in the human rights community. That problem is that we have pretenders in the human rights and legal communities using the platform of human rights to advance corruption and to shield corrupt elements in our society."

"It is our responsibility to expose and delegitimise these pretenders and to make sure that our citizens recognize that fight against corruption and impunity of perpetrators is really the cause to promote human rights. This is the right course to take as a human rights advocate," Mr. Angwe said.

According to him, "The constitutional guarantee of presumption of innocence is a shield and not a sword, and corrupt officials cannot claim not to be tried because they have human rights, especially given the massive stealing of our commonwealth. A shield to protect citizens from sponsored state power and doesn't have to become a sword by which corrupt people will say because they have human rights they are entitled to steal our commonwealth with impunity and subject our people to suffering."

"You can't steal so much and subject people to suffering and claim human rights. This is not the way to go. Human rights are for the advancement of the greatest majority of the greatest number. So, when we see our senior citizens at the Bar, or public service trying to delegitimize the work of SERAP, National Human Rights Commission and other human rights bodies we have to make sure that we shout them down," Mr. Angwe also said.

Others who attended the report launch included: "M. H. Bello for National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC); Morayo Adebayo of Amnesty International; Ezeogun Joseph and R.O. Ayorinde, the representatives of the President Nigerian Medical Association and the Lagos State Commissioner for Health, respectively.

SERAP's report is calling on President Muhammadu Buhari to "urgently instruct the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice to promptly refer to appropriate anticorruption agencies for prosecution several unresolved cases of corruption involving the Ministry of Health, including the $29 million Vaccine Grants Scam; N1.9 billion Special Intervention Fund Ebola Fund Scandal; and Nigeria Pharmaceutical Institute Ghost Workers and Illegal Recruitment Scam."