Enhancing Human Development in Nigeria Through Constitutional Reform via the Human-Rights-Based Approach to Development

Abstract

Development indexes and scholarship portray Nigeria as non-developed. Non-development is acutely felt in the sphere of human development. This article interrogated the state of Nigeria’s human development by showing that the violation of human rights law is at the heart of Nigeria’s lack of human development. It offered some constitutional reform proposals that could potentially cure the country’s perceived human development weaknesses. It also utilised the human-rights-based approach to development. Consequently, the article answered the following research question: Is it possible to realise human development in Nigeria using the human-rights-based approach to development by way of constitutional reform? While acknowledging the weakness in the often argued importance of making chapter 2 of the 1999 Constitution justiciable, it made a case for the introduction of suo motu intervention by the judiciary in order to boost the realisation of rights that enhance human development: Right to health, right to education and right to a decent standard of living. It also argued for the relaxation of the rigidity of dualism in the 1999 Constitution in order for Nigerians to benefit from certain doctrines, like the principle of progressive realisation, which favour the aforementioned rights that enhance human development. To buttress this point, the paper then cited the innovative section 254(c)(2) of the 1999 Constitution which, to promote the plight of the Nigerian worker, did something similar with regard to the accommodation of international law instruments related to industrial relations.