INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS AND THE SCOURGE OF CORRUPTION IN NIGERIA: CONFRONTING THE DEMON

Abstract

Human rights are inalienable and imprescriptible because they are rights we enjoy by virtue, solely of being human; rights naturally inhering in human being; rights and freedom which every person everywhere and at all times equally has by virtue of being moral and rational creature. By doctrinal or theoretical approach, this paper investigated the proposition that these rights, endorsed by International Community as Bill of Rights are principally constituted by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. These rights, especially those enshrined under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, also endorsed as chapter 2 in the Nigerian Constitution are threatened not only by lack of resources to secure them but by the scourge of corruption which has become so endemically intractable as to threaten the Nigerian nationhood. The paper examined impact of corruption on these basic human rights and found the scourge of the result of successive military and civilian government on failure to deliver on their promises to tackle corruption. The paper thus recommended that ordinary people must take their destinies in their hands, through some collective measures, to save the Nigerian Nation before this demon destroys the next generation, ahead of its emergence