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Violator Award - Nigeria
Nigeria named a 2006 Housing Rights Violator for persistent, widespread forced evictions
Nigeria has been named one of three Housing Rights Violators in 2006, for its extensive record of government-sanctioned mass forced evictions and its ongoing disregard for the human right to adequate housing.
Each year, the Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) awards its Housing Rights Violator Awards to three governments guilty of particularly serious and pervasive housing rights violations in the preceding year. COHRE has issued its Violator Awards since 2002. This year, Nigeria shares the Violator Awards with the Philippines and Greece.
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Nigeria: Facts at a glance
- The Government of Nigeria is one of the worst violators of housing rights in the world, with over two million people forcibly evicted from their homes since 2000.
- The Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) has forcibly evicted more than 800,000 people from their homes in Abuja since 2003.
- More than 12,000 people have been forcibly evicted from their homes in Lagos since January 2005.
- More evictions connected to the Government’s privatisation plans are expected in the near future in Lagos, and will likely affect another 20,000 people.
- The Rivers State Government began demolishing homes of the Agip Waterside Community in February 2005 leaving 5,000 – 10,000 people homeless. Residents were given insufficient notice and were not provided with alternative housing or compensation.
- The Rivers State Government forcibly evicted some 1.2 million people in July 2000 from Rainbow Town, Port Harcourt – a settlement dating from the 1960s. To date, the State Government has not provided alternative housing or compensation to those who were rendered homeless.
- Over 70% of the population of Nigeria live below $1 (PPP) a day, as reported by the United Nations MDGInfo 2006
- The most recent available census figures for Nigeria are from 1991. At that time, the Federal Capital City (FCC) had a population of 107,069 and the Federal Capital Territory had a population of 378,671. The FCT Minister and FCDA officials have stated publically that the FCT has a population of 6 or 7 million and that Abuja is the fastest growing city in the world. This is often used to justify demolitions, as the Master Plan intended a limit of 3.1 million persons in the FCC. However, there have been no official figures released to support these estimates of population size or growth rate.
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| FACT SHEET NIGERIA |
Download the complete Housing Rights Fact Sheet on Nigeria here.
Released 5 December 2006
 download doc [en]
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