ECOWAS court orders Nigeria to provide free, compulsory education

IN a dramatic and ground-breaking judgment on Tuesday, the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice in Abuja,  ordered the Nigerian government to provide as of right, free and compulsory education to every Nigerian child. This judgment followed the court’s earlier ruling that declared that all Nigerians were entitled to education as a legal and human right.

The ECOWAS court’s judgment read in open court on Tuesday, followed a suit instituted by the Registered Trustees of the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) against the Federal Government and Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), alleging the violation of the right to quality education, the right to dignity, the right of peoples to their wealth and natural resources and to economic and social development guaranteed by Articles 1, 2, 17, 21 and 22 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

The court also ruled that the UBEC failed to discharge its legal responsibility pursuant to its foundational instrument to monitor how states were spending and using states’ natural wealth and resources in order to ensure that the resources were spent for the purposes for which they were meant.

The court granted the following reliefs asked by SERAP:

A declaration that every Nigerian child is entitled to Free and Compulsory Education by virtue of Article 17 of the African Child’s Rights Act, Section 15 of the Child’s Rights Act 2003 and Section 2 of the Compulsory Free and Universal Basic Education Act, 2004.

An order directing the defendant to make adequate provisions for the compulsory and free education of every child forthwith.

The court also said that the ICPC report on the diversion of the sum of N3.5 billion from the UBE fund by certain public officers in 10 states in Nigeria constituted only a prima-facie evidence of theft of the public funds until the officials involved were successfully prosecuted before national courts. On this ground, the court did not elaborate on the provisions of Articles 21 and 22 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights.

The Court said that the right to education can be enforced before the Court and dismissed all objections brought by the Federal Government, through the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), that education was “a mere directive policy of the government and not a legal entitlement of the citizens.”