RECONSTRUCTING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NATIONAL SECURITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN NIGERIA
Authors:
Benson Oluwakayode Omoleye Ph.D.
Abstract:
Achieving a proper balance between national security and human rights within a national jurisdiction continues to generate controversy among scholars, human rights experts, and general commentators across the globe. There are those who tenaciously hold the view that national security/interest must in all circumstances, be placed over and above human rights and personal liberties while others contend that effective national security is better achieved by deepening and expanding the frontiers of human rights. These issues are currently dominating national discourses in Nigeria. The paper examines, once again the nagging issue of how to properly relate human rights with national security in the country. It observes that national security has become a cloak for human rights abuses in Nigeria and calls for increased judicial scrutiny of its use and greater human rights consciousness by civil societies to prevent its abuse.