Benue State University, Makurdi

Contemporary Minority Rights Issues in Nigeria: An Appraisal of the Extant Legal Regime

Maiyaki Theodore Bala^*

Abstract

Scores of countries around the world are confronted by challenges associated with the towering number of culturally diverse groups, which may be linguistic, ethnic, tribal or religious situated within the defined boundaries of a state. This situation has led to tension and conflicts between the ‘majorities’ and the ‘minorities’. The ‘minorities’ are mostly at the receiving end of the struggles and the ‘majorities’ are consistently discriminating against them. In attempting to end the discrimination against minorities, the UN Member States unanimously adopted the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Persons belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities. The Declaration essentially presents direction to States as they look forward to manage diversity and guarantee non-discrimination, and for the minorities themselves, as they go all out to achieve equal opportunities and involvements. The central objective of this article is the interrogation of the precarious and ever expanding gap between the minorities and state legal instruments of protection which continuously expose these minorities to the hazards of undue discrimination and avoidable disadvantages. In examining the foregoing, the objective of this article is to highlight the overwhelming need for minority ethnic groups in Nigeria to have unique engagements and arrangements to safeguard their fundamental human rights as well as constitutional provisions to provide for specific rights that would protect them against socio-economic cum political marginalization and ensure that they play an all-inclusive and effective role in government at the local, state and federal levels, on the public sector front as well as full proof protection in the private sector. The methodology adopted in this article was the doctrinal approach with substantial reliance on primary and secondary sources accessed from library materials and the internet. This article found that some of the unabated race conflicts in the country overtime have been directly associated with the struggle by the minorities in the country to find wider participation and a sense of belonging in the scheme of things. It was also found that the paucity of statutory instruments and the protracted inability of state to set up institutions and systems of safeguards for the minorities in the union had served to exacerbate the worsening racial conditions in the country engendering the sporadic calls by some groups for self-determination. In the end, this article made prescriptions for Institutional, legislative and policy frameworks aimed at providing sustainable protection and safeguards to the minority groups in the country. The article also recommended the building of a common nationality, collective accord, balanced and effective government throughout the country as a palliative and antidote to the enduring suspicion currently characterizing the fabrics of the interface between the minorities and majorities in the Nigerian project.

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