Nigeria continues to struggle with the protection of fundamental human rights despite marginal progress in some areas, according to new data released by the Human Rights Measurement Initiative, HRMI.
The latest assessment by the independent global human rights monitoring organisation revealed that Nigeria remains far from meeting its obligations in critical areas such as food, healthcare, housing, employment, education and civil liberties.
According to the report, Nigeria’s scores for the right to food (58.6 per cent), health (48.8 per cent), housing (41.0 per cent) and work (34.9 per cent) all fall within what HRMI classified as the “very bad” category, highlighting persistent challenges affecting millions of citizens.
The country’s weakest performance was recorded in the right to work, where Nigeria scored just 34.9 per cent, reflecting continuing barriers to economic participation and access to decent employment opportunities.
Commenting on the findings, HRMI Co-Executive Director, Thalia Kehoe Rowden, said Nigeria possesses the resources needed to significantly improve living conditions for its citizens but requires stronger political commitment to achieve meaningful change.
“The rights we measure are absolutely fundamental. Nigeria’s leaders will need to make significant changes to improve their people’s quality of life. Better lives for its people are within its grasp if leaders choose to take action,” she said.
One of the most alarming findings in the report relates to education, where Nigeria recorded a score of just 5.8 per cent for the right to quality education, the second lowest globally according to HRMI.
The report noted that the figure indicates Nigeria is achieving only a fraction of what it should be capable of delivering in education relative to its current level of national income.
While the report acknowledged some gradual improvement in healthcare outcomes over the past two decades, it noted that progress remains uneven.
Nigeria’s reproductive health score was placed at 22 per cent, significantly lower than its adult health score of 57.1 per cent and child health score of 67.2 per cent, pointing to continuing challenges in maternal and reproductive healthcare services.
On civil and political rights, the report assigned Nigeria a score of 5.9 out of 10 for what HRMI describes as “Safety from the State” rights, which measure protection from arbitrary arrest, enforced disappearance, extrajudicial killings, torture and ill-treatment.
According to human rights experts consulted during the study, journalists, human rights defenders and individuals suspected of involvement in political violence or terrorism remain particularly vulnerable to rights violations.
The report also highlighted concerns about civic freedoms, giving Nigeria a score of 5.6 out of 10 for “Empowerment Rights,” which cover freedoms of assembly, political participation, expression, religion and belief.
HRMI observed that protections for these rights have remained largely stagnant since 2023.
Human rights experts involved in the research identified members of opposition political parties, including the People’s Democratic Party, African Democratic Congress, Labour Party and other opposition groups as categories facing potential risks of rights violations.
Rowden said the findings should serve as a wake-up call for policymakers.
“The new scores must be a call to action. The current situation unnecessarily deprives many people of their basic rights. Nigeria has the wealth available to ensure much better lives for many more of its people,” she stated.
The findings are contained in HRMI’s 2026 Rights Tracker dataset, which measures the human rights performance of countries across economic, social, civil and political indicators.
The organisation noted that its data are widely used by international institutions, including Amnesty International, the World Bank and the United Nations to assess human rights conditions and support policy development.
