TOPOGRAPHY OF HUMAN SUFFERING IN NIGERIA – FROM THE PLATEAU OF CORRUPTION TO THE LOW LANDS OF POVERTY: THE RIGHT TO DEVELOPMENT TO THE RESCUE

Abstract

This article takes a critical look at the content of the right to development as provided in the African Charter on Human and peoples’ Rights and the United Nations Declaration on the Right to Development, and interrogates the availability of that right in Nigeria. The article argues that an institutionalized culture of corruption is to blame for the failure of successive Nigerian governments to promote and foster the right to development because the resources for realizing that right are usually commandeered by the corrupt leaders. It is contended that the failure of the right to development in Nigeria truncates the realization of other human rights because the right to development is indeed the fountain head of all other human rights, what with the interdependence, interconnection and indivisibility of all human rights. A deficit of the right to development is therefore the reason for so much poverty and human suffering in Nigeria. Finally, the article submits that lawyers and judges have what it takes to actualize the quest of suffering Nigerians to enjoy the right to development. If lawyers through cause lawyering can engage the courts with a flood of strategic litigations, backed by robust policy and social change advocacy, the right to development will become tangible to checkmate corruption, poverty and human suffering in Nigeria.