Popular singer, Folarin Falana, popularly called Falz, has urged the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari(retd.), to reconstitute the governing council of the National Human Rights Commission.

 

This comes in the wake of protests against police brutality which has seen a series of attacks on unarmed #EndSARS/EndSWAT protesters by unknown armed hired thugs in Lagos and Abuja.

 

Falz’s demand was contained in an open letter addressed to the president via his verified social media account, titled “Request for reconstitution of the governing council of the national human rights commission for the discharge of its functions with respect to cases of human rights violations in Nigeria.”

 

According to the Falz who is also a Lawyer, the Human Rights Commission as stated by the body’s constitution has the right to “receive complaints and investigate all alleged cases of human rights violations in Nigeria and make appropriate recommendations to the President.”

 

As such, Falz stated that the “commission need not set up another panel for the exercise of its functions,” thereby negating the creation of an independent panel as earlier stated by the president’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina.

 

He added that human rights abuse has aggravated in the country because the “National Human Rights Commission has remained without the Governing Council since 2015.”

 

The statement read in part, “It is pertinent to note that Section 5 the National Human Rights Commission (Amendment) Act 2010 empowers the National Human Rights Commission itself to receive complaints and investigate all alleged cases of human rights violations in Nigeria and make appropriate recommendations to the President.

 

“In the light of the foregoing, I hereby call on Your Excellency to immediately reconstitute the Governing Council of the National Human Rights Commission and to do so publicly as well as transparently in order to restore the confidence of young Nigerians in your proposed police reform process.

 

“Failure to do this would force young Nigerians to believe that the continuous refusal to re-constitute the Governing Council of the National Human Rights Commission is a deliberate attempt to mislead us into thinking genuine efforts are being made at reforming the Nigeria Police when in truth the opposite is the case.”