Rethinking Rights and (In)Security in (Post)Colonial Nigerian-State

Abstract

Harold Laski’s assertion that political rights are useless to a starving being entreats us to move beyond limited notions of ‘human rights’, to more fundamental issues quintessential to minimally decent living. Notions of, and concerns for, human rights have long emphasised protection from bodily harm or physical violence at the expense of issues not limited to freedom from basic want or economic starvation, “basic sense of moral worth”, fear of social deprivation/exclusion, and basic sense of mental worth, etc., all revolving around the primary reason of the state, that is, the overall wellbeing of the human person. This draws directly from minimalist conception of security, which hitherto dominates human rights discourse, and downgrades economic deprivation, social exclusion, political marginalisation, and mental suppression, etc., as forms of terror endangering minimally decent life for humans. The contention is that the composite nature of human rights means that the realisation of one depends on and is in turn depended upon by others in an intricately linked and overlapping manner. This paper argues that states’ conduct, in some ways, either by error, omission and or commission, constitutes forms of terror in the broader spectrum of political violence. Anchored in critical terrorism studies (CTS) and employing content analysis, this paper examines the purpose of the state vis-à-vis its role in perpetuating terror and undermining ‘human rights’ through negligence and or political irresponsibility by focusing on security challenges in Nigeria. The paper concludes that, witting or unwittingly, state’s negligence in the provision of conditions necessary for security and wellbeing of the citizenry constitutes a major threat to ‘human rights’ and removes the human from human rights discourse.

Keywords: Human rights, Security, Critical studies, Post/colonial state, Violence, Nigeria

DOI: 10.7176/DCS/13-4-03

Publication date:June 30^th 2023