“When It Comes To Human Rights In Nigeria, There Is Nothing To Celebrate” – Banky W Laments

Nigerian singer, Banky W has weighed in on the current state of Human Rights in Nigeria.
According to Banky, the International human rights day was celebrated worldwide and it’s heartbreaking to say the government has done nothing about improving the state of human rights in the country. He believes Nigeria has nothing to celebrate as there is still a lot of work to be done.

He wrote, It’s heartbreaking to take stock of where we are. Yesterday was International Human Rights Day. We’ve been working with the European Union and the British Council on a campaign – “16 days of Activism against Gender Based Violence and Sexual Assault”, and yesterday, as we brought the campaign to a close, we discussed the current state of Human Rights in Nigeria.

Sowore, despite being granted bail by the Court, was re-arrested less than 24 hours later in a brazen assault on the Judiciary & the rule of law in Nigeria. Abba Jalingo is still locked up for criticising a Governor. Sahara reporters have had their Nigerian bank accounts frozen with no explanation, and assets seized.

As far as Gender Equality goes… the Gender Equality bill did not make it past a 2nd reading before being shut down in the National Assembly. And yet the social media bill is on its way to a 3rd. Our constitution basically says that women are 2nd class citizens, yet that is not deemed a serious enough issue… instead, people like Elisha Abbo (the senator that physically assaulted a woman for daring to ask him to calm down) is one of the “leaders” openly pushing for the social media bill to pass, so that they can once and for all prevent ALL of us from speaking up against bad governance.

There is a very obvious, blatant assault on free speech and the freedom of expression going on right before our eyes. There is an emergency when it comes to the treatment of women and children.. when Senators are allowed to marry teenagers and physically assault women… when 1 in 4 girls in Nigeria are victims of sexual assault – the youngest patient of the Mirabelle Center is a 3 month old girl, the oldest is an 80 something-year-old Grandma.

When it comes to Human Rights in Nigeria.. there is nothing to celebrate, there’s just a whole lot of work to do. We must all do something. Maybe u can call/email your Senators and Reps? Maybe we can all can post online and get the attention of International News Media so that they can join us in pressuring our Government? Maybe U can volunteer/donate to a Sexual Assault Referral Center? Just do something. Anything.

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It's heartbreaking to take stock of where we are. Yesterday was International Human Rights Day. We've been working with the European Union and the British Council on a campaign – "16 days of Activism against Gender Based Violence and Sexual Assault", and yesterday, as we brought the campaign to a close, we discussed the current state of Human Rights in Nigeria. ___ Sowore, despite being granted bail by the Court, was re-arrested less than 24 hours later in a brazen assault on the Judiciary & the rule of law in Nigeria. Abba Jalingo is still locked up for criticising a Governor. Sahara reporters have had their Nigerian bank accounts frozen with no explanation, and assets seized. ___ As far as Gender Equality goes… the Gender Equality bill did not make it past a 2nd reading before being shut down in the National Assembly. And yet the social media bill is on its way to a 3rd. Our constitution basically says that women are 2nd class citizens, yet that is not deemed a serious enough issue… instead, people like Elisha Abbo (the senator that physically assaulted a woman for daring to ask him to calm down) is one of the "leaders" openly pushing for the social media bill to pass, so that they can once and for all prevent ALL of us from speaking up against bad governance. __ There is a very obvious, blatant assault on free speech and the freedom of expression going on right before our eyes. There is an emergency when it comes to the treatment of women and children.. when Senators are allowed to marry teenagers and physically assault women… when 1 in 4 girls in Nigeria are victims of sexual assault – the youngest patient of the Mirabelle Center is a 3 month old girl, the oldest is an 80 something year old Grandma. __ When it comes to Human Rights in Nigeria.. there is nothing to celebrate, there's just a whole lot of work to do. We must all do something. Maybe u can call/email your Senators and Reps? Maybe we can all can post online and get the attention of International News Media so that they can join us in pressuring our Government? Maybe U can volunteer/donate to a Sexual Assault Referral Center? Just do something. Anything. #FreeSowore #HerStoryOurStoryNG

A post shared by Banky Wellington (@bankywellington) on Dec 11, 2019 at 12:41am PST