The Jurist-Biblical perspective of Jesus' and Saro-Wiwa's trials: the challenges of human rights violations in the Niger Delta, Nigeria

Abstract

In order to explain the challenges of human rights violations in Niger Delta, Nigeria clearly, human rights violations were traced from the biblical era to contemporary society using the excruciating trials of Jesus Christ, Saro-Wiwa and eight others as a case study. The aim of this article is to elucidate the socio-economic effects of human rights violations and the resultant disposition of the religious body to violations, degrading treatments and brutalities inflicted on innocent citizens by the ruling class. A newly devised jurist-contextual method was used by applying the contemporary constitution of a given society to analyse and justify the subject under consideration. The findings revealed that human rights violations have not improved despite the civil rule in Nigeria. The nation’s security agencies continue to dehumanise the citizens, carry out extraudicial killings of innocent civilians on a regular basis and some towns were heinously annihilated with impunity. These lawless acts of tyranny and violations of human rights pose a serious threat to Nigeria’s nascent democracy and its corporate existence as a nation. Consequently, it is recommended that if the nation must be rid of vices and develop, the church must not be in apathy, but should fearlessly − like the early church − denounce all violations, injustice and cruelty of the ruling class to the people of Niger Delta; and the Nigerian government must rebuild the devastated towns and villages of Ogoni land. Finally, the ruling class and all the security agencies must respect, uphold and obey the law of the nation in which human rights are entrenched.