By Linus Aleke, Abuja
The human rights record of the Federal Republic of Nigeria will be examined by the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working Group for the fourth time on Tuesday, 23 January November 2024, in a meeting in Geneva that will be streamed live.
In a statement on Thursday, the United Nations said, Nigeria is one of 14 States to be reviewed by the UPR Working Group during its upcoming session, billed to commence on 22, January to 2, February 2024.
The first, second and third UPR reviews of Nigeria, the statement noted, took place in February 2009, October 2013, and November 2018, respectively.
The UN further noted that the UPR Working Group is comprised of the 47 Member States of the Human Rights Council.
Noting that each of the 193 UN Member States can participate in a country review, the statement said: “The documents on which the reviews are based are: 1) national report – information provided by the State under review; 2) information contained in the reports of independent human rights experts and groups, known as the Special Procedures, human rights treaty bodies, and other UN entities; 3) information provided by other stakeholders including national human rights institutions, regional organizations, and civil society groups”.
The statement said the UPR is a peer review of the human rights records of all 193 UN Member States.
“Since its first meeting was held in April 2008, all 193 UN Member States have been reviewed thrice. During the fourth UPR cycle, States are again expected to spell out steps they have taken to implement recommendations posed during their previous reviews which they committed to follow up on and highlight recent human rights developments in the country. The delegation of Nigeria will be led by Yusuf Maitama Tuggar, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nigeria. The three country representatives serving as rapporteurs (“troika”) for the review of Nigeria are Chile, Gambia and Malaysia,” the statement concluded.
