The United States Government has raised the alarm over worsening security and a collapsing justice delivery system in Nigeria, highlighting enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, and growing corruption in its latest Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.
Released by the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour, the report listed lengthy pre-trial detention, delays, and systemic graft in the judiciary as major obstacles crippling justice delivery in Africa’s most populous nation.
According to the report, security agencies routinely abuse their powers of arrest, often holding suspects without warrants while flouting laws that require detainees to be brought before a magistrate within 48 hours and granted access to lawyers and family members.
“Police and other security services had the authority to arrest individuals without a warrant if officials reasonably suspected a person committed a crime. Security forces sometimes abused this authority,” the report stated.
It noted that although the law stipulates that pre-trial detention orders should not exceed 14 days, security officials often ignored this provision.
Amnesty International was quoted in the report as saying that the whereabouts of “dozens of young men detained at SARS Awkuzu” in Anambra State remain unknown since the disbandment of SARS in 2020, adding that bail provisions were usually arbitrary, with suspects kept incommunicado and sometimes locked up indefinitely.
“In their prosecution of corruption cases, law enforcement and intelligence agencies did not always follow due process, arresting suspects without appropriate arrest and search warrants,” it said.
On the judiciary, it added: “Some detainees were held in pre-trial detention for periods equal to or exceeding the maximum sentence for the accused crime. The shortage of trial judges, trial backlogs, endemic corruption, bureaucratic inertia, and undue political influence seriously hampered the judicial system. Some detainees had their cases delayed because the Nigeria Police Force and the Nigerian Prisons Service did not have vehicles to transport them to court. Some individuals remained in detention because authorities lost their case files.”
The report further observed that the new minimum wage of N70,000 approved by the Federal Government had already been eroded by the continuous depreciation of the naira, putting the amount at $47.90 per month, with the local currency trading at over N1,500 to the dollar.
“The National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Act 2024 doubled the minimum wage to N70,000 ($47.90) per month. Despite the increase, currency devaluation meant the minimum wage was no longer higher than the poverty income level. Many employers had fewer than 25 employees, so most workers were not covered,” it stated.
The US Government noted that some states had declined to implement the new wage, citing financial challenges, while loopholes in enforcement remained unaddressed.
It added: “The law did not define premium pay or overtime and prohibited excessive compulsory overtime for civilian government employees, stressing that the government rarely effectively enforced minimum wage and overtime, while penalties were low and not commensurate with other crimes such as fraud.”
With between 70 and 80 per cent of Nigerians working in the informal sector — where regulations are largely ignored — the report said workers’ rights violations remained rampant.
On child rights, the report decried persistent early marriages despite federal laws fixing the minimum age at 18. “Federal law sets a minimum age of 18 for marriage for both boys and girls. While 35 states, except Zamfara State, adopted the law, many states, especially in the North, did not uphold the federal minimum age. In some states, children as young as 11 could be legally married under customary or religious law,” it observed.
It also said: “The government worked with local and international partners to engage religious leaders, emirs, and sultans on the issue, emphasising the health hazards of early marriage.”
However, the Presidency, in a swift response, rejected the report’s conclusion, insisting the justice system was already tackling lingering issues around delayed trials and corruption in the courts.
Reacting, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Public Communications, Sunday Dare, said: “Our judicial system continues to address concerns about lengthy pre-trial periods alongside other issues. These challenges are abating, even as the Nigerian Government has initiated several judicial reforms to improve Nigeria’s justice system. The national summit on justice was declared open in April last year by President Bola Tinubu.”
He added that security efforts were better coordinated, citing recent arrests of “two leaders of the Ansaru terrorist group,” adding: “It’s a validation of the efforts being made to address the security situation internally and externally. There is much coordination of security efforts from all outfits, and several security challenges have abated. The US recognised these efforts as significant. The security clean-up is a continuous effort.”
On the economic front, Mr Dare insisted the naira was stabilising, noting: “The naira has stabilised. That we can see. The economy is undergoing a recalibration, and we see positive numbers from macroeconomic indicators. The naira will strengthen with time.”
