A/HRC/43/43/Add.1 jurisprudence of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the African Court on Human and People’s Rights has protected it indirectly through cases related to other human rights contained in the Charter, such as the right to privacy, the right to property and peaceful enjoyment of possessions and the right to protection of the family. 6 7. Nigeria is party to the Revised Treaty of the Economic Community of West African States, by which the Community Court of Justice was established. Since 2005, the Court’s jurisdiction has extended to human rights cases. 7 Numerous cases of forced evictions in Nigeria have reached the Court based on violations of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. 8. The Constitution of Nigeria provides, in section 16 (2) (d), that the State shall direct its policy towards ensuring that suitable and adequate shelter is provided for all citizens. In section 6 (6) (c), however, the Constitution states that the provision is not justiciable, unlike the civil and political rights contained therein. As a result, the constitutional protection of the right to housing has developed through other human rights, such as the prohibition against inhumane and degrading treatment. 8 9. National legislation that is particularly relevant for the right to housing includes the 1978 Land Use Act, the 2019 National Housing Fund Act and state-level legislation regulating tenancy. III. Economic growth, corruption and inequality 10. Nigeria has the biggest economy in Africa and its gross domestic product (GDP) is ranked twenty-ninth in the world, placing Nigeria between Austria and the United Arab Emirates.9 Its GDP per capita (2,366 US$) is similar to that of India (2,309 US$) and higher than that of most African countries.10 11. However, due to extreme levels of inequality and insufficient distribution polices, economic growth has not reduced poverty levels in Nigeria. The Brookings Institute estimated in October 2019 that almost 95 million people (48 per cent of the population) are living in extreme poverty (with an income of 1.9 US$ per day or less), a number that is bigger than in any other country and growing by four persons every minute. 11 According to World Bank data, the number of persons with a daily income of less than 1.9 US$ grew from 57.2 million in 1992 to 84.8 million in 2009. 12 While poverty continues to grow, the number of very wealthy persons has also increased: between 2004 and 2010, the number of millionaires in the country rose by 44 per cent.13 Oxfam calculated in 2017 that the wealth of the five richest Nigerians could end extreme poverty in Nigeria. 14 12. Among the main causes of extreme inequality are: the misallocation of public resources, a pervasive culture of corruption (an estimated 20 trillion US$ was stolen from the treasury between 1960 and 2005 by public officials 15), the “astronomical” cost of the public administration due to excessive staff, salaries and benefits, and, generally, the lack of political commitment to fighting poverty. Crucially, the Nigerian tax system places the 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 4 Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and UN-Habitat, “The right to adequate housing”, fact sheet No. 21/Rev.1, p. 12. http://prod.courtecowas.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Supplementary_ Protocol_ASP.10105_ENG.pdf. See paras. 26–30 below on forced evictions. http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/countries-by-gdp. Ibid. https://worldpoverty.io/index.html. http://povertydata.worldbank.org/poverty/country/NGA. www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/wealth-five-richest-men-nigeria-could-end-extreme-povertycountry-yet-5-million-face. Ibid. Olusola Samuel Faboyede, Chinonye Okafor and Maxwell Prosper Onochie, “Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) as a strategy for managing Nigerian external reserves for sustainable development”, IOSR Journal of Economics and Finance, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 48–54.