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Speaking on the topic, “Citizens’ Rights and Security Concerns,” Falana urged legal practitioners, courts, and civil society to shift socio-economic rights from mere constitutional aspirations to enforceable guarantees, warning that national security cannot exist without citizens’ welfare.
Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, on Tuesday called on Nigerian lawyers to take a frontline role in combating government neglect and ensuring the enforcement of citizens’ rights, during his keynote paper presented at the 2025 Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) in Enugu.
Speaking on the topic, “Citizens’ Rights and Security Concerns,” Falana urged legal practitioners, courts, and civil society to shift socio-economic rights from mere constitutional aspirations to enforceable guarantees, warning that national security cannot exist without citizens’ welfare.
Falana criticized the narrow focus on physical security, stressing that Nigerians do not live by fences and gates alone.
He said, “A nation that is free from bullets but not from hunger, disease, joblessness, squalor, or illiteracy is not secure. It is merely quiet.”
Socio-Economic Rights and Security
Highlighting the link between socio-economic deprivation and national insecurity, Falana noted that rights enshrined in Chapter II of the 1999 Constitution—including health, education, housing, and social security—are often treated as non-justiciable, leaving millions of poor citizens unable to enjoy political and civil liberties.
“Without education, income, health, housing, and social security, political and civil rights become formally equal but materially unequal—usable mainly by the well-off. That inequality is itself a security risk,” he warned.
Falana stressed that progress is possible through domestic and international legal frameworks, citing the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the Community Court of Justice of ECOWAS, and laws such as the Child Rights Act and the Compulsory, Free Universal Basic Education Act as avenues to enforce socio-economic rights.
Role of Lawyers, Courts, and the NBA
The SAN urged lawyers to creatively link socio-economic entitlements to justiciable civil and political rights.
“For instance, denial of education violates the right to dignity of the human person, or environmental degradation amounts to a breach of the right to life,” he explained.
He also emphasized the importance of public interest litigation as a tool to challenge governmental neglect and expand judicial recognition of rights.
Courts, Falana said, must adopt purposive interpretations of the Constitution to make Chapter II enforceable. He cited Gbemre v. Shell (2005) as an example of judicial creativity in expanding rights protection.
Falana called on the NBA, as the umbrella body of legal practitioners, to lead campaigns for enforcement of socio-economic rights and coordinate efforts across its 130 branches.
He recommended that the NBA’s human rights committees accompany magistrates and judges during monthly visits to police stations and detention facilities to ensure compliance with human rights standards.
Monitoring Arrests and Protecting Suspects
He highlighted mechanisms under Section 33 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) for monitoring arrests to prevent abuse of power, including quarterly and monthly reporting requirements for police officers and visits by judges and magistrates to detention facilities. Falana stressed that lawyers have a duty to defend these provisions to prevent arbitrary arrests and ensure transparency.
Falana concluded by reminding lawyers of the broader responsibility of ensuring that rights are more than just promises on paper.
“Security without welfare is brittle; welfare without security is fragile. The duty of our generation—at the bar, on the bench, in civil society and government—is to insist that rights are not paper promises but living guarantees. That is how the Republic can be stabilised, and that is the only way we make citizenship meaningful for every Nigerian,” he said.
He also recalled the warning of the late Dr. Akinola Aguda from the 1985 NBA AGM, saying, “Equality before the law is nothing but a myth created by our political rulers and the lawyers to give cold comfort to the poor so that they, the political rulers and lawyers can have peace of mind.”
Falana’s presentation underscored the urgent need for Nigerian lawyers and institutions to actively defend human rights, combat government neglect, and promote socio-economic justice as a cornerstone of national security.
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