By Uduma Kalu
A leading human rights organisation in the United States of America, Freedom House, has rated Nigeria from its previous position as a ‘not free country’ to ‘partly free’ one.

Sadly however, the organisation said the number of free countries in the world are declining and that only 43 per cent of the world’s population lives in countries considered to be free. The report blamed bolder authoritarian regimes coupled with inadequate resistance from democratic countries for the decline.

In its latest findings entitled “Freedom in the World 2011,” the independent watchdog organisation that monitors the state of democracy and human rights around the world, said only 87— two fewer than 2009 — of the world’s 194 countries could be designated as truly free.

Sixty countries were designated as “partly free,” and 47 were considered “not free.” Those grouped along Nigeria as partly free from not free are Kenya, Moldova, the Philippines and Tanzania. And comparatively free and fair elections in Kyrgyzstan and Guinea.

Global freedom, as measured by the level of protection of political rights and civil liberties of citizens, suffered its fifth consecutive year of decline in 2010, according to Freedom House.