Attitudes of Nigerian college students towards fundamental human rights

College students in developing countries constitute a vibrant and restive segment of the society. They also enjoy an enhanced status by virtue of their rarity with regards to the larger population. The writers recently conducted a study to assess the attitude of college students to human right issues. On the whole, a sizeable portion (more than 60% of sample) of the 570 subjects believe that fundamental human rights exist in Nigeria. However, 50% of those sampled had no confidence in the law enforcement agencies of Nigeria. 40% were also very critical of the judiciary. Overall, the results seem to indicate that university students in Nigeria seem to have a fairly positive assessment of the institutional, political and legal opportunities for the enjoyment and defence of human rights in Nigeria.