FG Sensitive to Human Rights, Dignity – NHRC
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on Thursday said the Federal Government was mindful of the protection of rights and dignity of the citizens.
Mr Tony Ojukwu, the Executives Secretary of the commission, said this in Yola at a 3-day Mid-Term Review Meeting of the IDP Protection Monitoring Project for North- East.
NHRC is in partnership with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on the protection monitoring of refugees’ rights in the insurgency ravaged communities in the north east.
The executive secretary said government was committed to ensuring that rights of citizens were respected, adding that violation of rights of citizens was always met with stringent sanctions.
He said the NHRC would not relent in its mandate to ensure that violators of human rights were punished, adding that such prompt actions were deterring flagrant abuses in the country.
Ojukwu however said the mid-term review of humanitarian operations in the north-east was done to identify challenges and probable workable solutions to them.
“It is imperative that we all come to the round table to review what has been done so far and what is left to be done to close identified gaps and challenges’’, he said.
The executive secretary said the meeting would enable the partners to outline corrective actions to ensure that the project was on track to achieve maximum results.
“Mid-term review is a mandatory requirement of the NHRC and the UNHCR on IDP protection monitoring project.
“The review meeting is used as a tool for monitoring and evaluating the implementation of the project as well as to measure performance against output.
“It also assesses the progress towards results, identifies risks to sustainability and emphasises supportive recommendations,’’ he said.
Ojukwu said the ten targeted states in 2015 for the project had reduced to six in 2016.
He however, said that the project had further reduced that number to include only Adamawa Yobe and Borno.
Mr Ahmed Teejan-Cole, the Resident Officer of the UNHCR in Yola, said the review would identify and observe causes of rights violations in the areas.
“The members of the team would identify with IDPs who are depressed and with those that have been put in the dark which is the trends globally now,’’ he said.
The UNHCR official restated that the global population of refugees stood at 25.4 million, adding that the resources allocated for humanitarian projects had dwindled.
He urged the monitors to utilise the resources at their disposal to achieve more results.
The monitors in the IDP protection monitoring project were drawn from the three states listed for visitation. (NAN)
