Evaluate NHRC performance, Osunbor urges Buhari

Former Governor of Edo State, Senator Oserheimen Osunbor, has challenged President Muhammadu Buhari to evaluate the performance of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).

Osunbor also accused the rights commission of defama­tion and violation of his funda­mental human rights following the commission’s indictment that he violated the Electoral Act and should be prosecuted for al­leged electoral violence commit­ted during the Edo governorship election in 2007.

Reacting to media reports credited to the human rights commission indicting him for breaching the electoral laws, Sen Osunbor in a statement in Abuja on Monday, said it’s dishearten­ing that the NHRC can wantonly trample on the rights of innocent Nigerians without care about the damage they so inflict on their psyche.

He challenged the government of President Muhammadu Bu­hari to evaluate the performance of the NHRC as the commission has become notorious for hiding under the cloak of legal techni­calities to churn out baseless re­ports and indictments.

Osunbor advised that if the commission must live up to its name and measure up to inter­national standards, the federal government must revisit its cur­rent composition and structure including the enabling law estab­lishing it, part of which he said violates the provisions of Section 36 of the constitution.

The former governor in his statement said that the latest in­cident is the second within two years that the rights body would be engaging in this unwarranted defamation of his character, the first being in April 2014 when the agency published his name among those indicted for flout­ing the Electoral Act.

He said he instituted legal ac­tion against the rights commis­sion when it became obvious that the body couldn’t answer the queries contained in his 2014 letter to the Executive Secretary of the NHRC, Prof Bem Angwe seeking clarifications about the specific electoral offences he had committed, as the body in response, said it based its rec­ommendation on the judgment of the Edo State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal.