RULAAC Commemorates Human Rights Day 2025: “Human Rights, Our Everyday Essentials”

The Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre (RULAAC) has joined the global community to mark Human Rights Day 2025, celebrated under the theme “Human Rights, Our Everyday Essentials.”

According to RULAAC’s Executive Director, Okechukwu Nwanguma, this year’s theme underscores a fundamental truth: human rights are not distant ideals or ceremonial declarations. They are the basic, everyday necessities that allow every individual to live with dignity — from access to clean water, food, and healthcare to housing, education, justice, and freedom of expression.

RULAAC stresses that human rights form the backbone of any peaceful, just, and inclusive society. Yet, in Nigeria today, millions of citizens continue to be deprived of these essentials due to governance failures, entrenched corruption, insecurity, and a deepening humanitarian crisis. What should be guaranteed rights have increasingly become privileges available only to the wealthy or influential.

Despite Nigeria’s commitments to numerous regional and international human rights treaties, the realities faced by citizens often contradict these obligations. RULAAC highlights critical areas where Nigerians are still denied their basic rights:

• Access to Water: Many communities rely on unsafe or contaminated water sources, exposing millions — particularly children — to preventable health risks.

• Healthcare: Years of underfunding, collapsed primary healthcare structures, and lack of essential medicines continue to claim lives, especially among women, children, and rural populations.

• Education: Worsening insecurity, dilapidated learning facilities, high numbers of out-of-school children, and rising fees undermine the constitutional right to quality education.

• Freedom of Expression: Journalists, activists, whistle-blowers, and everyday citizens frequently face intimidation, harassment, arbitrary arrests, and digital surveillance.

• Security and Justice: Persistent police brutality, extrajudicial killings, kidnappings, communal conflicts, and general insecurity underscore the state’s failure to protect lives and uphold justice.

RULAAC notes that these systemic failures reflect a governance structure that has not prioritized human dignity.

Key Actions Demanded by RULAAC

In line with the spirit of Human Rights Day 2025, RULAAC called on the Federal Government to urgently take concrete, measurable actions, including:

• Prioritizing essential social services through transparent budgeting and improved delivery in water supply, healthcare, and education.

• Safeguarding freedom of expression and civic participation, ensuring that journalists, activists, and citizens can speak freely without fear.

• Ending impunity within law enforcement by implementing comprehensive police reforms, strengthening oversight bodies, and ensuring accountability for abuses.

• Addressing insecurity through rights-respecting approaches centered on intelligence gathering, prevention, community engagement, and justice rather than brute force.

• Strengthening anti-corruption measures to ensure public resources translate into better services and improved living conditions.

• Protecting vulnerable groups — including children, women, persons with disabilities, displaced persons, and low-income communities — who are disproportionately affected by rights violations.

As the world celebrates Human Rights Day, RULAAC reminds the Nigerian government that human rights are not optional goals or mere aspirations — they are binding constitutional and moral obligations. Ensuring access to water, healthcare, education, justice, and freedom is not a favor from the state; it is its duty.

Nigeria cannot profess commitment to human rights internationally while neglecting or violating them domestically

RULAAC reaffirmed its unwavering dedication to monitoring and documenting human rights violations, supporting victims, promoting police accountability, and advocating for a Nigeria where human rights are not theoretical promises but realities enjoyed by every citizen, every day.

Human rights are our everyday essentials — and must remain the foundation of the country’s peace, justice, and sustainable development.