Posted by By Jude Njoku on
What an "award"! Nigeria was last month in far away Geneva Switzerland ranked as the country with worst record of housing rights violations in the world.
What an "award"! Nigeria was last month in far away Geneva Switzerland ranked as the country with worst record of housing rights violations in the world. Nigeria, Greece and the Philippines were ranked together as joint winners of the Housing Rights Violators award 'sponsored'' by the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), a non-governmental organization (NGO) working on human settlements and housing rights.
COHRE in the report stated that the widespread evictions going on in Nigeria have resulted in the massive displacement of millions of people with a spiral effect on health, education, employment and family cohesion.
Executive Director of the housing rights watchdog, Jean du Plessis observed that in Nigeria, more than two million people have been forcibly evicted from their homes in the last six years. The COHRE Executive Director enjoined the Nigerian government not to use forced eviction as a tool of development. His words: The lack of transparent and consultation with affected residents fall short of Nigeria's international legal obligations.
Massive evictions which took place in Nigeria since the present civilian regime came to power include the demolition of Rainbow Town in July 2000. About one million persons were allegedly rendered homeless by that eviction. The on-going demolition exercise in Abuja to recover the master-plan of the nation's seat of power, has also rendered about a million Nigerians homeless. In Lagos, demolition of houses is a regular occurrence. But most of these demolitions fall short of internationally required standards for evicting people from their homes.
Evictions should follow due process - Onyekpere
MR. Eze Onyekpere, a Lawyer, is the Executive Director of Lagos -based Socio-Economic Rights Initiative (SERI). He also presides over the affairs of the Nigeria Habitat Coalition, a coalition of non-governmental organizations NGOs working on housing and the living environment. His group has for the past 15 years been in the vanguard of the crusade to protect Nigerians from the exploitative tendencies of shylock landlords. Mr. Onyekpere spoke to Vanguard Features on the COHRE report which he described as being perfectly in order. Excerpts:
Do you agree with the COHRE report that Nigeria ranks among the worst housing rights violators in the world?
If you cast your mind back to when the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights examined Nigeria's first report on the implementation of its obligations under ICESR, housing and evictions were some of the sore thumb issues that came up strongly in the concluding report where it was emphatically stated that Nigeria was in violation of its obligations under Article 11 (1) of the Covenant on the Right to Adequate Housing. What has happened since then is that while Nigeria was then under the military, everyone focused attention on violation of rights from civil and political rights to economic and social rights including housing.
Apparently when the civilian dispensation came and Nigeria was supposedly to be in a democracy, a lot of blackmail was introduced into a number of areas particularly in the housing rights sector. I used the word blackmail deliberately. If you understand what has been happening in Abuja in particular, el-Rufai under the guise of restoring the Abuja master-plan, has embarked on a de-housing programme, which means that he has pulled down more houses and has virtually built no new houses since he took over as the FCT Minister.
Some of these houses were pulled down against the norms of existing court orders. Some of them were so whimsically done that it appeared that the government was sadistic and enjoying itself by pulling down and making people homeless. I very well agree on COHRE's evaluation that Nigeria is one of the worst countries in terms of forced evictions and de-housing of its citizens. It was also under this same administration that housing was relegated to the background. Although a Ministry of Housing was created, the enabling environment and the right atmosphere for that ministry to work very well was not created. The right persons who have the sound knowledge and ideas about how to move housing forward were not put in the ministry.
So, you had a situation where we had the Housing ministry but the government was seriously undertaking a de-housing programme. Now to the idea that the private sector should take over housing and be in the lead which was one of those issues listed in NEEDS and which the government has wholeheartedly embraced, one is at a loss because the policies and the laws that will support the private sector in taking the lead have not been enacted. We are still worried with all the problems associated with the National Housing Fund (NHF). How many Nigerians outside the formal sector can access those funds; even those in the formal sector, particularly workers, how many of them are still accessing the fund? There has been a lot of talk, a lot of talk, yet little action in terms of getting the right persons into the right positions, amending laws that need to be amended and putting policy frameworks that can work; not theories. That goes to support in a nutshell that Nigeria has been undertaking forced evictions without taking concrete steps to be able to build new houses. Rather, we are demolishing existing houses.
So, you think that the COHRE report on Nigeria is authentic?
It is perfectly in order. And if you look at what has happened, even the very few houses that have been built by the private sector, they are so outrageously priced and they are on a cash and carry basis. Mortgage is often not available, so you find a situation that beyond evictions, the population is growing but new houses are not being built and those that are built are sold on a cash and carry basis and belong to the upper class in the society. So many of them have been built in Abuja by the private sector but they have been there for two, three years and nobody has got the money to buy.
When you are talking of demolitions and displacements, it appears you are limiting it to those carried out by the government. Don't we have forced evictions by private individuals that have their own houses?
I look at forced evictions as evictions that are a little bit massive, not just one or two persons. But even the treatment between landlords and tenants is not the best so far we can get. If you are talking of the private sector or private citizens, you know that the fundamental duty to protect the right to adequate housing is that of the government. The government sets laws and policies. After setting laws and policies, it also controls the police that should enforce the laws. It is also the government that controls the courts. The judiciary, although independent, is part of the government. In essence, what I am saying is that even if there have been private evictions, it is because of the failure of governmental law enforcement and policy. Essentially, the government should have that responsibility to be able to stop private citizens from violating its laws on the relationship between landlords and tenants; notices that have to be served; the need to get a court order before people are evicted are some of those germane issues that are stipulated by our laws. But you also know that if the government refuses to obey court orders and is violating the law, all it is setting is example which will be copied by powerful individuals in the private sector. So, it is like the mother cow is chewing, the babies are just watching and saying, how do you do this and they will copy. I think that government should be held responsible.
The report said that about two million people have been forcibly evicted since the year, 2000. Do you agree with this figure?
I suspect that the number may even be more. Do you know the number that was evicted in Rainbow Town? What of the ones that have been happening in Lagos and the massive one in Abuja and in other parts of the country? The evictions have been quite massive. If this has happened under a military dictatorship, Nigerians would have shouted more but there is this blackmail of restoring master-plans, bla bla bla. The government has failed to recognize its fundamental duty to provide housing and where it cannot provide housing, not to embark on a de-housing programme.
What is the right procedure for evicting people?
First of all, if the government recognizes that it has a basic obligation to house its citizens or to provide the enabling environment and follow it through, evictions are supposed to be the last resort. If government has acquired land, it should provide those that were living on that land alternative land for accommodation. Give them adequate notice to leave the place. If they still don't leave the place, you get a court order to get them out of the land. And by the time you get it, even if you are using the police or other security agencies to evict people, it should be humane. You don't evict people in the night; you don't evict people in bad weather. There are processes and procedures but this is just the outline. The important thing is that there should be due process and that due process encompasses alternative land or alternative accommodation; helping them to move.
If you simply throw people out, at the end of the day, they will still resurface somewhere because they are not going to live in the air. Just like slums, you bulldoze a slum today, it will reappear somewhere else because these are human beings. They are not dead. To that extent, you have to plan for them, whether you like it or not, they are Nigerian citizens; they are not like dispensable people, so if you push them from site A, they will emerge in site B. In essence, we have to get to the position where government recognizes that although you may call them illegal occupants and squatters, yes, but they are Nigerian citizens. Where are they supposed to go? Okay, you cannot live here anymore, move them to another site, provide them infrastructures like schools for their children, markets, churches, mosques and then they will move.
What happens to people living in areas where the government wants to do urban renewal?
Urban renewal is not a new thing. We have canvassed the concept of retrograde planning for so many years now and that is that you take cognizance of the fact that people are already inhabiting the place. Together with the community, you look at the buildings and structures that must go and in agreement with the community, you decide that these ones must go. Those that can stay without infringing on whatever plan that is place, without being on the sewers, without being water mains can stay.
Together with the community, you plan how to redevelop the place and resettle the people who will be displaced. So, it is not just a question of moving bulldozers like the late Adisa, you say I will run mad. The way el-Rufai has been going about it is more than what Adisa did.