DSS under fire over alleged kidnapping, indefinite detention of Imo teenager

. . . HURIWA urges Aisha Buhari to intervene

Prominent civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has called on leaders of the international community to mount pressure on President Muhammadu Buhari to end the unconstitutional clampdown of civilians in the Igbo speaking South East of Nigeria in the guise of seeking to crush the proscribed Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB). HURIWA said the clampdown takes the form of indefinite hostage takings and apparent kidnappings of kids whose parents are alleged members of IPOB.

The group has similarly challenged the Wife of the President, Mrs. Aisha Buhari, to play the role of the Mother of the nation by calling on her husband to respect child rights and order the release of the girl child who has been kidnapped and clamped into the dungeon of the Department of State Services as alleged by her relations.

HURIWA has also condemned the regime of flagrant abuses of the civil liberty of Imo State people by the Hope Uzodinma-led administration and called on right thinking citizens of Nigeria globally to speak out and condemn these oppressive policies in Imo State.

Calling the practice of arbitrary arrests, indefinite detention, humiliation, enslavement of little children whose parents the current Buhari administration suspects to belong to IPOB as the worst forms of human rights violations and a crime against humanity, the rights group is asking President Buhari to order the DSS to release forthwith, the 15 year-old Miss Chidera Amaefula from Atta Umunam in Njaba Local Government Area of Imo State whose only reason for this horrendous crime of state sponsored hostage taking is that her dad is suspected to belong to IPOB.

HURIWA in a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, condemned what it calls a modern-day state-sponsored coordinated kidnapping and forced imprisonment of a child who, as the group was reliably informed, was arrested by Ebubeagu because her father was being accused of being an IPOB member.

She has been in the DSS dungeon in Owerri since four months now. HURIWA condemned the misuse of Ebubeagu by the Imo State Governor and is asking the Governor to stop the aggression against the good people of Imo State.

HURIWA which quoted a communication and an appeal for help sent to her office in Abuja and reportedly signed by Chinonso Uba Nonsokwa, stated that the complainant informed us that he  tried to reach the DSS Director  several times over this matter but all to no avail, even as the complainant is quoted by HURIWA  as stating thus: “We wouldn’t like to have another Gloria Okolie who was illegally detained for nine months till justice was finally served as the court has ordered the police to pay her 60million naira. The DSS could easily save herself from this same fate now! I wouldn’t have come public if the DSS had done what they were supposed to do before now…DSS should know that holding a minor without evidence is a crime against humanity and an infringement on her fundamental human right!!! I call upon the house member of Njaba State constituency; Hon Uju Onwudiwe and Hon Ugonna Ozuruigbo to rise to the occasion and fight for the release of this little girl before it is too late.”

HURIWA backed the complainant by stating that the violation of the liberty and freedom of the girl-child is an egregious crime against humanity which must never be tolerated in the contemporary times.

HURIWA stated that this is a clear case of child abduction and forced imprisonment which was absolutely unjustifiable under a constitutional democracy.

The rights group said the denial of her right to the dignity of the human person, her arbitrary arrests and illegal detention and the denial of her right to liberty which are guaranteed by a plethora of provisions in chapter 4 of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria of 1999 as amended, “is despicable, reprehensible, abominable, illegal and unconstitutional.”

The rights group therefore calls on President Muhammadu Buhari to call off this range of dehumanising agenda of forcefully depriving Igbo people of their fundamental liberties which HURIWA sees as pure hate crime and Igbo phobia which must be stopped without further waste of time.