Paper short abstract:

The right to health has become a global mandate in response to concerns for the safety and well-being of all peoples in societies.

Paper long abstract:

The United Nations called on all countries to address issues of right to health as a matter of human right. However, civil rights advocacy groups in Africa are faced with challenges in achieving right to health for ordinary citizens.

This paper attempts to bring together the challenges of achieving rights to health in Nigeria, through the exploration of various human rights works and their outcomes. A literature review focusing on human rights and the right to health via refereed academic papers, the World Wide Web, library archives, newspaper publications, books, were the source of information used to establish the presented information in the paper.

The findings suggest that various structural problems are responsible for the denial of right to health. It is believed that when governments fail to acknowledge and enforce human right laws, conflicting priorities becomes the fuel for structural problems reflected in situations such as poverty, civil wars, violence against children, women, vulnerable adults, the mentally challenged and the poor. The result is the production of unhealthy society and eventually economic break down when majority of the workforce is affected.

The way forward, it is suggested, is in the emphasis that the government must take responsibility for the well-being of its people through policy developments and partnership working with other actors, particularly this paper suggests civil rights advocacy groups. However, changes can only be achieved by taking collective action to address the identified root causes of the problems.