Justifying Water Rights in Nigeria: Fiction or Achievable Panacea?

Okukpon Irekpitan () and Anozie Ijeoma ()
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Okukpon Irekpitan: Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, Abuja, Nigeria
Anozie Ijeoma: Public Law, Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, Unilag Campus, Akoka, Yaba, Lagos, Nigeria

The Law and Development Review, 2018, vol. 11, issue 2, 757-800

Abstract: Nigeria, like other countries in the world, competes for available water resources due to the increasing demands for the resource as a result of agricultural and other industrial activities. Nigeria’s current National Water Policy 2017 is vague regarding the enforcement of the right to water, with an absence of institutions to actualise same. The provisions under chapter II of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 does not provide a justiciable cushion for the actualisation of this right. This paper examines the reality of the right to water in Nigeria, using South African policy as a model. It interrogates the feasibility of existing policy on water in Nigeria against the backdrop of the South African right to water, which is justiciable and hailed as one of the most proactive in water legislation around the world. The paper concludes with recommendations on the justifications for the right to water in Nigeria, advocating systematic engagements with government and community stakeholders as a key driver towards achieving sustainability and entrenchment of the right to water in Nigeria.

Keywords: right to water; human rights; justificiability; water rights (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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DOI: 10.1515/ldr-2018-0037

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