HURIWA to security forces: You have 48 hours to free the kidnapped Sokoto priests

Foremost civil rights advocacy group, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has stated that the kidnappers of the two Catholic Reverend fathers and many others from the rectory of a Catholic Church in Katsina under Catholic Diocese of Sokoto to set them free UNCONDITIONALLY must be freed by security forces within 48 hours because they are simply involved in providing spiritual, psychological and material succour to the poorest of the poor in Katsina State. HURIWA said the security agencies have become totally overwhelmed and lack what it takes to carry out their mandate wondering why President Muhammadu Buhari is very comfortable with a bunch of incompetent security chiefs and commissioners of police failing in their primary statutory duties.

HURIWA said the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto is a very poor Diocese which basically caters for millions of highly economically deprived citizens of the Northern States captured under Sokoto Diocese including Sokoto, Katsina and Zamfara.

HURIWA also urged the Federal government and the Katsina State Government to take immediate action to ensure that the frequent violent attacks and invasions of Catholic Church facilities in Katsina State are stopped.

HURIWA said it is suspected that there has been a well designed Jihad agenda put in place by Islamists and some foot soldiers of those against the existence of Christianity in the core North to use extreme acts of criminal violence and terror to dissuade the Roman Catholic Church and other Christian denominations from establishing branches in what is presumed to be a stronghold of Islamic Religion in Nigeria.

In a media release by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, HURIWA stated that from discreet investigations and materials in circulation in some academic circles, it has emerged that indeed some Islamic Doctorate Degree Students from Northern Nigeria who went to some Universities in Sudan on some forms of scholarship actually wrote and defended theses on how to frustrate the spread of Christianity in the so-called Moslem North.

The rights group is therefore calling for a broad based investigation to determine if indeed the Jihad against Christianity in the North has begun because the frequency of attacks on Churches and Christians in the North have more than doubled. HURIWA said the primary duty of government is to protect the lives and property of the citizens just as the Rights group emphasised the importance of doing everything within the law to promote and protect the fundamental human rights of citizens irrespective of their ethnic and religious affinities or orientation.

The Rights group recalled regrettably that daredevil gunmen early Wednesday broke into one of the parishes presided over by the Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, Matthew Hassan-Kukah even as it was learnt that the armed hoodlums kidnapped two priests and two others in the rectory of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, Gidan Maikambo, in the Kafur Local Government Area of Katsina State.

HURIWA disclosed that the Director, Social Communications of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, Rev. Fr Christopher Omotosho, confirmed the development with our correspondent on Wednesday morning and said that the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto is under attack and no information has been gotten as to the whereabouts of the abductees. Omotosho said, “As at midnight of today, 25th May, 2022, gunmen broke into the rectory of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, Gidan Maikambo, Kafur LGA of Katsina State. “The parish priest and his assistant Rev. Frs. Stephen Ojapa, MSP, and Oliver Okpara and two boys in the house were kidnapped. No information as to their whereabouts. Kindly pray for their safety and release.”

HURIWA said the dusts surrounding the killing of the young 200 level Student of the Shehu Shagari College of Education in Sokoto Deborah Samuel Yakubu has yet to settle down before this recent vicious attacks on the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto just as the Rights group urged the Security Forces to take steps to ensure that Nigerians of Christian affiliations are not systematically chased away from their native homes only because they constitute the minority ethnicity in the core Northern states. On Deborah Samuel Yakubu, HURIWA alleged that the Sokoto State government is actively conniving with forces against the Constitution and the Rule of law to grant secret release to the alleged killers. HURIWA has asked the Sokoto State Police Command to tell Nigerians why the police looked on as the riotous crowds massacred and burnt the young school girl only because she is a Christian.