National Human Rights Commission, NHRC, has urged the contestants in the forthcoming general elections to ensure they fulfill their political campaign promises as well as guiding against the violation of the peoples fundamental human rights.
This was contained in a message delivered by the Lagos NHRC coordinator, Mr Lucas Koyejo at the town hall meeting organized by the commission for the political parties and their contestants to sought their views on how they will handle human rights issues if they are elected.
Koyejo who charged the aspiring political office holders appealed to them in ensuring that they are not only determine to win elections for the fun of it but to serve the people according to their promises.
His advise was coming just as the three major political parties, the All People’s Congress, APC, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and Labour Party , LP and their candidates were obviously absent at the forum.
Only the candidates of the National Rescue Movement, Akinwunmi Braithwaite; African Democratic Congress, Funso Doherty; African Action Congress, Akeem Olayiwola and Tope Balogun of the Action Alliance were in attendance.
In their separate speeches, the governorship candidates expressed their commitment to upholding the human rights of the citizens if elected to steer the affairs of the state.
They stated that Lagos State needs to invest more in the protection of the rights of the residents as well as guaranteeing the rights to free education, rights to justice and rights to social security.
The candidate of NRM, Braithwaite, declared that as a victim of human rights abuse if elected he would ensure that all residents of Lagos enjoy their rights as guaranteed by the constitution of the country.
He explained that the state cannot claim to be civilized without having social justice while noting that he will also ensure that the rights of people with disabilities are also protected.
He said, “In this country, we seem to denigrate and delay justice. We need to stand up for human rights.
“Government has a duty to educate the children and we are going to make sure that we promote gender rights.
“We believe that employment is a basic human right and we will make sure that there are jobs centres and job hubs and we will take this as emergencies because if we don’t take the large number of young people off the streets, we are sowing danger for ourselves,” he said.
Speaking in same vein, Olayiwola said the African Action Congress will revisit cases of past human rights abuses and ensure that justice is served in a timely manner and without fear or favour.
He said the party will provide free and quality education to students in the state.
“We will send a bill to the house of assembly that every political office holder should as a matter of fact enrol their children to public schools so that at the end of the day, there will be no gap between the political elite and the masses so that everybody will know that public schools should be standardized,” he added.
Balogun said his administration will prioritise equity and comfort for residents.
According to him, every government should show interest in the comfort of the people, adding that it will prevent the ongoing brain drain in the country.
“If the government can actually establish things that will give people comfort, so many of these (human) rights would have been protected. The major problem we are having as Lagosians is that there is an unattended focus on the issue of our education system where we have overpopulated classes leading to poor teaching and learning activities. This is why mass accessible education is important, with that we will be solving the problem of thuggery,” he said.
He added that his party will delve into social justice to enact laws that will favour the people and reduce cases of unjust trial and lengthy detention of the innocent.
On its part, Doherty decried that the absence of government in addressing rights violations, contributes to the deprivation of human rights in the state.
He lamented that the state government is stifling the rights of opposition in the state while using state and non-state instruments to frustrate the activities and campaigns of the opposition
