The Executive Secretary of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Tony Ojukwu has observed that there must be accountability for the violation of rights, saying if the right to vote and be voted for are rights, then there has to be responsibility for the violation of these rights.
Ojukwu spoke on Tuesday at the monthly review forum in furtherance of its 2023 Election Project, “Mobilizing Voters for Elections (MOVE)”.
He also threw more light on what has happened in the area of human rights during the 2023 general elections.
Indeed, the forum among other things unveiled the nature of complaints received by the Human Rights Situation Room with regard to the Presidential and National Assembly Elections held on Saturday, 25th February, 2023.
“For us there must be accountability for the violation of rights and since the right to vote and be voted for are rights, then there has to responsibility for the violation of these rights” he said.
He however enjoined Nigerians to keep faith and urged the citizenry to have patience with on going collation of results, stressing that the law must be complied with in the collation process for the election.
According to Ojukwu, “from the reports we are getting from the field, security agencies did fairly well, the report from our human rights monitors in the field confirmed that security agencies did their best, the numbers were overwhelming but generally, except in two or three states, where the elections recorded some violence, you generally say that in most of the places, Nigerians trooped out in their large numbers and participated in the elections happily and insisted their votes must count.
“So our general assessment of the elections; we have already given our preliminary report on Sunday, we will still give our final report, however we thought it necessary to have a general review of what has happened in the area of human rights during this 2023 general elections” he said.
In a goodwill message, the National Coordinator, Legal Defence and Assistance Project, Mr. Chinoye Obiagwu, said the project will associate itself with NHRC in integrating human rights into our elections.
Meanwhile, Chairman, Transition Monitoring Group, Musa Auwal Rafsanjani, noted that the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BIVAS) has brought some sanity into the electoral process, saying Nigerians should continue to demand for accountability for violation of rights.
