Absence Of Record Of Treaties Signed By FG National Embarrassment – CDHR

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Abubakar Malami

The reported absence of available, inclusive and updated record of treaties and conventions to which Nigeria is a signatory is a national embarrassment, National President, Committee for the Defence of Human Rights, CDHR, Mr. Malachy Ugwummadu has said. 

Ugwummadu, a human rights lawyer stated this in Abuja after a sub-regional conference on Africa Industrialization Day, described the development as regrettable and unacceptable. 

While expressing deep concern over the embarrassing report, Ugwummadu said that the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice must be held responsible for this uninspiring and upsetting lapse because of the office he occupies

He wondered why a government would openly and gleefully tell her citizens in this age and time that it does not have a list of both multilateral and bilateral treaties, much less of a compendium.

According to him, somebody obviously is not doing his job. 

Quoting Section 150 of the 1999 Constitution as amended, Ugwummadu said the Attorney-General, as the nation’s Chief Law Officer should be a repository of all laws and legal instruments with a responsibility to advise government and its agencies on critical legal issues which also border on treaties, protocols, conventions and adjunct matters.

Anything to the contrary, he insisted, smacks of abdication of duties.  “What then is the quality of advice he gives if he does not have a record or register of treaties and conventions to which Nigeria is a signatory, he asked. 

Recall that treatise and conventions binding on Nigeria are not only gazetted but domesticated into the corpus of legislations pursuant to the requirements of Section 12 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended.  And these information are easily be accessed with the help of information technology.

Like most Nigerians, especially those in the human rights community, Ugwummadu believes that as a democratic country, Nigeria cannot afford to isolate herself from her legal obligations, international agreements, human rights treaties, conventions and related issues.

He therefore called on those concerned to urgently take steps that would remedy the anomaly before it is too late.

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