Nigeria’s human rights record will be examined for the fourth time by the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) working group.
The review will be conducted on Tuesday, January 23, 2024, in a meeting in Geneva that will be televised live on the web.
According to a statement on Thursday by the UN Human Rights Council, Nigeria is one of 14 countries to be reviewed by the UPR working group during its upcoming session from January 22 to February 2, 2024.
The first, second and third UPR reviews of Nigeria took place in February 2009, October 2013, and November 2018, respectively.
The UPR Working Group is comprised of the 47 member states of the Human Rights Council. However, each of the 193 UN Member States can participate in a country review.
According to the statement, the documents on which the reviews are based are national reports. They are derived, firstly, from information provided by the state under review and, secondly, from information contained in the reports of independent human rights experts, groups and other UN entities. Thirdly, the reports are also based on information provided by other stakeholders, including national human rights institutions, regional organisations, and civil society groups.
The UPR is a peer review of the human rights records of all 193 UN Member States.
Since its first meeting was held in April 2008, all 193 UN Member States have been reviewed three times.
During the fourth UPR cycle, states are again expected to spell out steps they have taken to implement recommendations posed during their previous reviews, which they committed to following up on and highlighting recent human rights developments in the country.
Nigeria’s delegation would be led by Minister of Foreign Affairs Yusuf Tuggar.
The three country representatives serving as rapporteurs for the review of Nigeria are Chile, Gambia and Malaysia.
According to the statement, the session will be webcast live on UN Web TV and the list of speakers and all available statements to be delivered during the review of Nigeria will be posted on the UPR Extranet.
The statement added that the UPR Working Group is scheduled to adopt the recommendations made to Nigeria on Friday, January 26, 2024. The state under review may wish to express its positions on recommendations posed to it during its review.
