Nigeria is facing a displacement crisis of historic proportions, and the nation must urgently replace “palliative relief with transformative justice,” the Chairman of the Nigerian Law Reform Commission (NLRC), Prof. Dakas C.J. Dakas, SAN, warned at the 10th House of Justice Summit on Friday.
Delivering a keynote address titled “From Camps to Justice and Communities,” Dakas told an audience that included former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, lawmakers, judges, diplomats and civil society leaders that over 3.5 million Nigerians are now internally displaced—a population larger than at least 14 African and 17 European countries.
“Let that sink in,” he said. “Behind every statistic is a shattered home, a disrupted childhood, a woman stripped of dignity or an elderly man who may never return to his ancestral land.”
An expanding humanitarian catastrophe
The NLRC chairman drew from UNHCR reports to paint a stark picture of life inside displacement camps: overcrowding, food scarcity, unsafe water, limited healthcare, and widespread insecurity.
He highlighted the intersectional vulnerabilities of women, children and persons with disabilities, warning that many suffer “double and triple layers of marginalisation.”
Women face rampant gender-based violence, including documented “sex-for-food” exploitation.
Children endure education loss, trauma, and trafficking risks.
Persons with disabilities are “effectively invisible,” he said, trapped in camps not designed for their needs.
“These are not anonymous victims,” he stressed. “They are rights-holders.”
Push Factors: Conflict, land grabbing, climate shocks, and governance failures
Dakas traced Nigeria’s displacement crisis to a constellation of pressures:
- Insurgency, banditry, and terrorism
- Resource conflicts and land grabbing, particularly in the Middle Belt
- Human rights violations
- Climate-related disasters
- Economic collapse
- Government inaction or weak institutions
“When governance collapses, displacement becomes inevitable,” he warned.
A Legal Vacuum: ‘Nigeria has ratified but not implemented’
Although Nigeria ratified the Kampala Convention, it has yet to domesticate it—leaving millions without enforceable protections.
The NLRC chairman called the current National IDP Policy insufficient, describing institutional responses as “under-resourced, poorly coordinated, and structurally weak.”
He urged lawmakers to enact a National IDP Rights Act, enforce electoral participation for displaced citizens, establish a National Reparations Fund, and introduce anti-land-grabbing laws nationwide.
Accountability and the peril of prioritising perpetrators
In one of the speech’s most forceful passages, Dakas warned against policies that rehabilitate insurgents while neglecting their victims.
“When offenders are prioritised over the very people whose lives they destroyed, criminality becomes incentivised,” he said.
“Justice must put victims first.”
He argued that the Nigerian state can still be held responsible for displacement, even when non-state actors cause it, if the state fails to prevent violence or provide redress.
‘Justice Must Reach the Tents and Trenches’: Gloria Ballason honoured
Dakas also delivered an emotional tribute to Gloria Ballason, founder of the House of Justice, calling her “an irrepressible voice for the marginalised” and recounting testimonies of lives saved through her activism.
In a striking moment, he asked the entire audience to stand in her honour.
“Gloria’s work proves that justice is not confined to courtrooms,” he said. “It must reach the tents, the trenches, and the torn edges of society.”
NLRC’s commitment and a call to action
Dakas pledged the Nigerian Law Reform Commission’s readiness to push for comprehensive reforms in partnership with civil society, institutions, and international agencies.
He closed with a story from Yad Vashem, where a young visitor wrote in a guest book: “Why didn’t somebody do something?”
“That question haunts us today,” he said. “The suffering of Nigeria’s displaced demands that we do something—not tomorrow, but now.”
