Justice Rita Ofili-Ajumogobia of the Federal High Court in Benin has urged the judiciary to make the socio-economic rights of the people realisable. The judge stated this on Tuesday night in Benin in a paper she delivered to mark the First Distinguished Graduates Award dinner of the Law Students Association of the University of Benin.
In her paper titled, “Overview of the socio-economic rights under the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” the judge stated that liberty as guaranteed by the 1999 Constitution should include freedom from want and deprivation, ignorance and disease, and danger of homelessness.
The judge also stated that such socio-economic rights of citizens like rights to quality education, employment, food and shelter were what make the rights to life, liberty, freedoms of movement, assembly and religion meaningful.
Ofili-Ajumogobia said though the constitution provided for socio-economic rights and made it mandatory for government to provide for them, the same constitution also restricted their enforcement in the interest of defence, public safety, public order and morality.
The judge said that if socio-economic rights were guaranteed, the nation could be saved a lot of the malaise that plague the polity and the society at large.
She said, “It strains the imagination how public safety, health, defence interests, morality and the like can ever be a justification for the deprivation of food, shelter, clothing, employment and the basic amenities of life.
”Are we willing to accept that in the 21st Century, food, shelter, education, healthcare, employment opportuinites are luxuries?”
”The state ought to ensure that all citizens have access to means of livelihood as well as adequate opportunity to suitable employment where conditions therein are just and humane; adequate facilities for leisure, social religious and cultural life; adequate medical and health facilities for all persons.”
By Emmanuel Obe, Benin
The Punch
Friday, September 7, 2007
