Pilex Centre is a Public Interest advocacy organization focused on human rights, environmental rights and democracy. We are duly registered under the relevant laws in Nigeria.
Pilex Centre has received information that the Chairman of Rivers State Waste Management Agency instructed inhabitants and citizens of Nigeria in Rivers State not to move about on sanitation days.
Pilex Centre wishes to inform the general public that the Chairman does not have the right to make executive orders and as such cannot restrict your freedom of movement.
While we all agree that there is need to keep our environment clean, we hold that it will be overreaching for the Chairman to restrict our movement in contravention of our constitutional right to liberty and freedom of movement.
Let me gladly refer us to the case of Faith Okafor V Lagos State Governement. In the said case, Faith Okafor was arrested by officials of the Lagos State government for violating the restriction of movement order. She was arraigned before the Special Offences Court on a charge of wandering and loitering in violation of the compulsory monthly environmental sanitation exercise. She pleaded guilty and was fined the sum of N2,000.00. She, however, filed a court action against the Lagos State Government and the Attorney General of Lagos State claiming that her arrest and detention amounted to an infringement on her rights to personal liberty and freedom of movement.
The action was dismissed at the High Court of Lagos State. However, it succeeded on appeal with the Court of Appeal holding that the order on the restriction of movement was unconstitutional and illegal. The court stated as follows: “I find worrisome the contention of the respondents that the directive of the governor can be equated to a law for which criminal sanctions will lie, and a person tried and convicted for the offence of violating the directives of the governor.… I shudder at this submission which in its elastic ramification takes us back to the dark ages of the Hobbesian state of nature.
“Section 36 (12) of the 1999 Constitution provides that a person shall not be convicted for a criminal offence unless that offence is defined and the penalty, therefore, prescribed in a written law. The respondents while conceding that there is no written law restricting the movement of persons on environmental sanitation days and making it an offence argue that the restriction still remains valid having been directed by the governor. I find it shocking that the disobedience of the directive of the governor in this regard has been elevated to a crime for which criminal sanctions attach, as in the conviction of the Appellant and the fine imposed on her.”
Declaration in the absence of a written law
The court, therefore, held that the infringement on Okafor’s right to freedom of movement could not be justified under the provisions of Section 41 (2) (a) of the 1999 Constitution. The court concluded the judgment in the case by making a declaration that in the absence of a written law prescribing the same, the Lagos State Government’s directive for people in Lagos to stay at home and not move about, thereby, restricting movement of persons within the stated hours on the last Saturday of every month is unlawful, illegal and unconstitutional.
Therefore, Pilex Centre urges the good people of Rivers State to go about their normal business after cleaning their environment. Such clean up could be done a day or two before the said sanitation day.
As a matter of fact. It is in our best interest to keep our environment clean. However, in line with extant laws, the Chairman of RIWAMA lacks the constitutional powers to restrict movement of Rivers people any day for any reason whatsoever.
Sincerely,
Courage Nsirimovu
Pilex Centre For Civic Education Initiative.
