Human rights lawyer Femi Falana, SAN, has warned the Nigerian government over the continuing wave of unlawful killings, kidnappings, and terror attacks, describing the failure to protect citizens as both a constitutional breach and an international human rights violation.
Falana gave this warning at the University of Abuja Law Students Association Law Week, comparing Nigeria’s insecurity with mass shootings in the United States.
The senior lawyer noted that while perpetrators abroad face justice, killers in Nigeria act with near-total impunity.
Falana said, “Farmers are murdered on their lands, students abducted, worshippers killed, and entire communities live in fear, not because the government lacks knowledge, but because corruption and negligence allow perpetrators to roam free.”
The SAN cited Nigeria’s Constitution, Sections 14(2)(b) and 33(1), which guarantee citizens’ right to life and impose a duty on the state to protect every individual. He warned that persistent inaction has effectively made the government complicit in violence.
Falana identified structural causes of insecurity, including economic alienation, weak enforcement of grazing bans, smuggling and criminal complicity, and double standards in government responses to kidnappings.
Ordinary citizens are often forced to negotiate with criminals or pay ransoms themselves, while elites receive rapid government intervention.
Highlighting international law, Falana referenced ECOWAS Court judgments that hold states accountable for preventable deaths, including cases where Nigeria was found liable for negligence leading to mass killings and deaths in schools and military institutions.
He said the same principle applies today: “Every village sacked, every farmer killed, every child abducted is a failure of the Nigerian state.”