Senator Shehu Sani, the Senator representing Kaduna Central Senatorial District in the National Assembly says the average Nigerian politician is insensitive to the fundamental human rights of Nigerians.

Addressing a delegation of the European Union Parliament in his office on Tuesday, Senator Sani said aside the politicians, security agencies in the country were also guilty of flouting the fundamental rights of Nigerian citizens.

He told the parliamentarians who are members of the EU sub-committee on human rights that Nigeria’s democracy has performed below expectation in terms of human rights.

His words: “In the last 18 to 19 years, our democratic experience and experiment has not been very smooth on the human rights perspective. In the sense that those fundamental principles for which a state would be gauged in terms of conformity to fundamental human rights, we found out that there are areas where we falter but there are also areas where we have recorded successes.

“When we talk of human rights in Nigeria, there are many areas of concern but the immediate concern is the lack of political tolerance among many of our political role players.

“We still have cases of people arrested for their views, we still have people detained for their own perspective, and we also have security agencies still unable to adapt themselves to the reality of what a democratic society should symbolize.

“We have seen the temptation from democratic governments to sideline human rights issues in the pursuit of the prosecution of the war against terrorism.

“It is our concern that democratic states within the continent should be able to balance their security exigencies within their obligation to respect the fundamental rights of citizens.”

Responding, leader of the delegation, Josef Weidenholzer said the Nigerian nation must achieve a certain level of democratic stability as a pre-requisite for the protection of human rights.

He added that democratic stability could only be achieved when there is rule of law and respect for human rights, pledging that the EU would provide more support towards addressing the problems highlighted by the Senator.