Consumer Education as a Strategy for Sustaining Human Rights and National Security in Nigeria

Abstract

The 1999 constitution provides for fundamental objectives and directive principles of state policy in chapter II, which recognized economic, social and cultural rights of Nigerians. The entrenchment of human rights provisions in Nigeria’s constitutions was aimed at creating a society where there is political freedom, social and economic wellbeing of the people. But despite the guarantee of fundamental rights and liberties in the Nigerian constitutions, the country has had the misfortune of bad leadership and governance, resulting in insecurity of greater proportion like kidnapping, ritual killings, terrorism, banditry, youth restiveness, herdsmen/farmers clashes, and cyber-crime. This also has profound and far-reaching effects on the promotion and protection of consumer rights to safety and redress. It is against these backdrops that this paper was written to examine human rights for sustaining national security and the role of consumer education in the promotion of human rights and national security. The methodology adopted in this study was conceptual in nature, through the review of archival literature of newspapers, government journals, journal and conference articles publications and textbooks. The paper suggested that government, its agencies and institutions, corporate bodies and individuals should be held accountable for human rights violations against consumers and threats to consumer security. The paper concluded that consumer education programmes should be intensified in every sector of the economy and be used as a tool for sustaining human rights in both formal and informal educational system. Government should establish mobile consumer complaints centers at ward and senatorial levels across the country to encourage consumers to easily seek redress whenever their rights are violated, and that government agencies and public institutions, corporate bodies and individuals be held more accountable for threats to consumer security (human rights violations against consumers). Keywords: Human Rights, National Security, Consumer Education, Directive Principles, Public Institutions.