Foremost civil rights advocacy group, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has called on the President Muhammadu Buhari administration to as a matter of urgency declare armed bandits operating in the North Western part of Nigeria as terrorists and treat them as same.
Besides, the rights group has asked for the constitution of a high-powered judicial commission of inquiry to ascertain if what has been going on in Zamfara State is a targeted genocidal onslaught seeking to wipe off the mainly Hausa indigenous population by alleged armed Fulani militia members. The rights group regretted that “the President who swore an oath to defend the lives and property of Nigerians which in any event is the primary duty of government in accordance with constitutional stipulation, has watched in bemusement whilst citizens are slaughtered like chickens.”
HURIWA in a statement issued on Monday in Abuja decried “the continuous massacre of rural dwellers in Zamfara in the last one week”, calling it “an obvious act of genocide”.
In the statement signed by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, and National Media Affairs Director, Miss Zainab Yusuf, the rights crusaders said it is not enough to always express shock and condemnation over killings but that the government must deal decisively with the so called bandits operating in Zamfara and other parts of the country.
“HURIWA is shocked that for two years the National Assembly has increasingly become weaker and incapable of using the instruments of oversight responsibility to compel the executive arm of government to defend Nigerians or make move to slam President Muhammadu Buhari with impeachment threats.
“The Senate President has become like a ‘pet dog” of the executive arm of government and has abandoned his watchdog role ascribed to the National legislature by the Grundnorm. Sadly, the Speaker has also become a stooge of President Muhammadu Buhari who is totally disconnected from the constant ordeals confronting millions of Nigerians just as the cocktails of killings by organised criminal gangs do not disturb or worry their consciences. Now amidst the cacophony of violence and killings carried out and orchestrated by armed non state actors, the National Assembly has gone on recess and are not bothered about the bad existential situations in all parts of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” HURIWA said.
Continuing, the rights group said in the statement: “We at HURIWA have continued to monitor the situation in Zamfara in the last one year and in the last one week where over ninety villagers were reported to have been gruesomely massacred between Thursday and Saturday lasts week by terrorist suspected to be armed bandits in Kadawa village of Zurmi Local Government Area of the State, while many others were severely wounded. We are disturbed that an obvious act of genocide is being handled with kids gloves. The fact which is notorious is that it would appear that these armed militants who are mostly Fulani sharing same ethnicity with President Muhammadu Buhari are been pampered and sadly all the heads of the security architectures in the internal security sector are Ethnic Fulanis.”
HURIWA also expressed dissatisfaction over the call from the Governor of Zamfara on the citizens of the state to defend themselves against bandits, saying: “That is an indication that the instruments of state can no longer guarantee their safety and a clear sign of a failed state.”
The rights group unequivocally called on the Federal Government “to deploy massive security to Zamfara and halt the ongoing genocide. We also want the FG to designate the so called bandits as terrorists and treat them so. We have resolved to write to the International Criminal Court in The Hague Netherlands to send them information on these atrocities going on in Zamfara which the President of Nigeria doesn’t seem to want to checkmate or curbed,” the statement said.
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