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Policy makers can be arrogant sometimes. They sit in their offices and analyse society and people’s choices. When they do not match to their expected reality, they conclude that people do not know what they are doing or that people do not know what is good for them. They then go on to craft policies assuming that they know what the people want and how the people should be behaving. Of course, when people do not respond to policies the way they expect the policy makers frequently move to trying to force people to fall in line.
“If only the people did what we wanted them to do then everything will be fine, and we will be on our way to development”. This is, of course, a massive generalisation and not always true but only by a little. Especially when it comes to policies regarding the poor. Too often the rights and agency of the people policy is supposedly being made for is trampled upon under the guise of some higher societal objective. My question for today is, should we start to put the rights of people first? Before any so-called policy objective?
This is of course not a particularly novel idea. Many countries and international development agencies follow this right-based approach to development. For some human rights come first before any kind of policy objective. For instance, some countries have found that even though they would like to have slower population growth, going around sterilising people against their will is not an option. People have the right to procreate. Many countries would like to improve labour productivity, but it is unacceptable to lock workers up in warehouses and have them whipped to work harder. Workers are human beings and have the right to fair treatment.
The rights-based approach is not something that is done to make people feel good about themselves by the way. Very frequently it results in better policy and better outcomes. Partly because society is so complex and still not perfectly understood that respecting people’s rights and allowing people do what they want to do is typically better than trying to herd people into choices that they ordinarily would not have made. Take the global battle against poverty for instance. One of the reasons why the latest Nobel laurates in economics won their prize was because they were able to demonstrate that poor people know more about the reality of living in poverty than the non-poor. So, if a policymaker wants to really alleviate poverty you probably must accept that the poor know more about that reality than you do.
Here in Nigeria the abuse of people’s rights supposedly to attain some national goal is becoming very common. To paraphrase a certain top government official recently; “When it comes to security, all laws take back a seat. We want to protect our nation; we want to make sure that our people are protected. You must be alive and well for you to begin to ask for your rights. Your rights come when you are well and alive”. Said while trying to justify the border closure policy. Our constitution of course guarantees the right to freedom of movement “and no citizen of Nigeria shall be expelled from Nigeria or refused entry thereby or exit therefrom.”
The rights of people to interact with their neighbours has been unilaterally appropriated and no one asked the people who are supposed to be the benefactors of this policy. If policy makers had asked in advance, they may have been told that even though the security concerns are important and there are issues with illegal smuggling, the borders are so fundamental to the everyday lives of many people that closing it is not really a good option.
Or what about the economic rights abuses in the financial sector. The constitution guarantees every individual the right to moveable property. To paraphrase, “No moveable property…. shall be taken possession of compulsorily and no right over or interest in any such property shall be acquired compulsorily.” Does foreign exchange count as moveable property from a legal perspective? I am not a lawyer and do not want to stray into legal territory. But if foreign exchange is property then the CBN shouldn’t be able to tell people who to sell their foreign exchange to and at what rate. Our laws allow for regulators with regulatory powers but do those power supersede fundamental rights?
Anyway, it seems like everywhere you look some policy maker is appropriating peoples’ rights under the auspices of achieving one policy objective or the other. To be clear I am not arguing for some wild west type libertarian adventure. But before people rights get taken away certainly, they should be asked. Even if it is via their representatives. Of course, as we have learned from others experience, if people are not ready to defend their rights then no one will do it for them.
NONSO OBIKILI
Dr. Obikili is chief economist at Business Day
