Center on Housing Rights & Evictions (COHRE) on July 20, 2011 released a community guide for asserting and defending housing rights in Nigeria.
This community guide draws on the Cambodian Community Guide to Defending Land and Housing Rights, published by the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) in September 2009, in conjunction with Bridges Across Borders Southeast Asia and the International Accountability Project. It is also based on COHRE’s experience of working in the field of land and housing rights in Nigeria.
This guide is aimed at helping the communities that are threatened by forced eviction and displacement in Nigeria, as well as it can prove to be a resource for COHRE staff and community based organizations so that they could train grassroots activists about how to defend community land and housing rights. The guide is also useful for facilitating interactive community training workshops.
The guide covers various aspects like development and displacement, introduction to human rights, the right to adequate housing, evictions and your rights, your rights under the Nigerian Constitution, classification of land in the Nigerian context, asserting and defending your housing rights besides highlighting the Land Use Act 1978.
Many of the topics covered in section I can be used in the rest of Africa, with slight adaptations from country to country. It is hoped that this, together with other COHRE training manuals, will help impart the knowledge, skills and values that will help communities overcome the threat of forced evictions
The guide is expected to assist communities facing eviction understand their rights under the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and international law, and advocacy strategies they can use to assert and defend these rights. The community guide was designed to bridge the information gap between communities about their land, housing rights and means of defending these rights—thereby empowering them to take collective action to resist large scale forced evictions.
The guide is available for download at this link.
