Legal explainer · Human Rights
Twelve fundamental rights sit in Chapter IV of the 1999 Constitution. We take each one in turn, in plain language, with the everyday situations where it matters most.
Published · 11 min read
Chapter IV of the 1999 Constitution is the part of the document most people mean when they talk about their rights. It is short, it is written in reasonably plain language, and it is enforceable — a person who says a right in Chapter IV has been breached can go to the High Court and ask for redress.
The rights below are stated generally. Each one has qualifications written into the Constitution itself, and how it applies to a particular situation is a question of fact and law.
The right to life protects a person from being deprived of life intentionally, subject to the exceptions the Constitution itself sets out. The right to dignity prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment, slavery and forced labour.
The right to personal liberty is the one people meet most often in practice. It governs when a person may be deprived of their liberty, and it carries the requirement that a person who is arrested be told why, in a language they understand, and be brought before a court within the period the Constitution allows.
The right to a fair hearing covers both criminal and civil proceedings: a hearing within a reasonable time, by a court or tribunal constituted so as to secure its independence and impartiality.
In criminal proceedings it carries the presumption of innocence, the right to be informed of the charge, adequate time and facilities to prepare a defence, and the right to defend yourself in person or through a legal practitioner of your own choice.
The Constitution protects the privacy of citizens, their homes, correspondence, telephone conversations and telegraphic communications — the constitutional foundation that sits underneath Nigeria's more recent data protection legislation.
It also protects freedom of thought, conscience and religion; freedom of expression, including the freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart ideas; and the freedom of the press.
Chapter IV protects peaceful assembly and association, including the right to form or belong to a trade union or political party; freedom of movement throughout Nigeria and the right to reside in any part of it; and freedom from discrimination on grounds such as community, ethnic group, place of origin, sex, religion or political opinion.
It also protects the right to acquire and own immovable property anywhere in Nigeria, and restricts compulsory acquisition of property except on the terms the Constitution sets out.
None of these rights is unlimited. The Constitution allows laws that are reasonably justifiable in a democratic society in the interest of matters such as defence, public safety, public order, public morality or public health, and for protecting the rights of other people.
That qualification is where most real arguments happen. Whether a particular restriction is lawful is decided case by case, on evidence, by a court.
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