NHRC ASSURES OF PROACTIVE MEASURES AGAINST RIGHTS ABUSE

By NBF News

By Innocent Anaba
Chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission, NHRC, Prof. Chidi Odinkalu, yesterday, said the commission will take proactive action against human rights abuses and deaths resulting from such abuses rather than fight perpetrators after they might have committed the act.

Speaking at a capacity-building training programme on the Freedom of Information Act, 2011 for staff of NHRC in Abuja, Odinkalu noted that it will be in the best interest of the commission to 'do more to prevent abuses and deaths that result from human rights abuses rather than fight perpetrators of such abuses.'

On the issue of funding which, he noted had been the commission's major problem, Odinkalu said: 'I am going to make sure that we have the resources to run this place. But I expect commitment from the workers to deliver on their jobs.'

On training, he said: 'Several good things have happened in this country in the last years, including the NHRC Act and FoI Act.

'If NHRC is to work well, its staff must understand how the FoI Act works. The training is to upgrade the skills of the workers so that they can serve Nigeria.

'It is also to afford staff the opportunity to come up with ideas on how to move the commission forward.'