practice was the court’s pronouncement that the law court has no business peddling into the
domestic affair of any political party in compelling a political party to abide by its policy of rotation
which is not favourable to the minorities. This pronouncement came as a result of a litigation by a
member of the party who felt the leadership of the party was not abiding by the principle of rotation
as enshrined in that party’s constitution. This singular pronouncement has given a rare opportunity
for a person from the minority group for the first time in the political history of Nigeria to stand in
for an election into the prestigious post of presidency.
Before now, the power sharing has been between the majority ethnic groups of Hausa/Fulani and
the Yoruba; a discriminatory arrangement that human rights activists have been campaigning against
over the years that minorities also have the rights to participate effectively in both economic and
public lives. When the palaver of rotational presidency started in Nigeria, the CSOs had swung into
action mobilising relevant stakeholders campaigning for the rights of the minorities in the political
process. In this case, the campaign was on upholding the political right of the incumbent president
who is from a minority group, and who merely acceded to power by divine connection because his
boss (the former president) had died in office as a result of a protracted illness. The argument of the
power brokers in the majority is that the incumbent president is only being allowed to complete the
terms of office of the then president to whom the incumbent was a deputy, and therefore would not
have the right to contest in the next year’s general election as a presidential candidate as power
must return to the majority in the north. The CSOs mounted serious campaigns to see that the
incumbent president stand election next year. The crowning effort of these campaigns was the court
injunction that tacitly allows the president to be among the contestants despite the opposition from
his own political party.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The draft recommendations by the Independent Expert on Minorities Issues are apt and vivid, and
therefore non‐negotiable. However, one may need��to add the following recommendations based on
practical experiences:
Domestication of all instruments on minorities’ rights should be advocated at state level. Some
states are not aware of the rights of the minorities neither are they aware of the UN Declaration on
the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities (1992). This
and other relevant international instruments on minorities including the rights to decent work
should be popularised while states are encouraged to domesticate them.
Official recognition given to some languages or ethnic groups as being major out of several in a
multilinguistic nationality is discriminatory and dehumanising leading to inferiority complex among
the minorities. Cultural sanctity of each ethnic group should be respected while equal rights be
accorded to all the language or ethnic groups in each state.
UN should mandate each state in ensuring that the development of minorities’ settlement is given
policy priority attention especially in the area of infrastructural development. Bad road networks,
lack of power supply, health facilities, market centres, and environmental degradation prevent the
minorities from effective participation in the economic process, and therefore in the development of
their communities. Policies on poverty alleviation strategies including job creation in form of cottage
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