ON BUHARI’S TENURE EXTENSION: ELDERS SHOULD NOT SCUTTLE DEMOCRACY LIKE ANTI JUNE 12 1993 TRAITORS – SAYS HURIWA

Prominent Civil rights advocacy group- HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has asked the Octoagenarian Senior Advocate of Nigeria Robert Clarke to concern himself with the type of legacies he wants to bequeath to generations unborn rather than play the role of a spoiler who is actively plotting to destabilise democracy with unrealistic and toxic proposals in such an old age such as a contemplation of tenure elongation for President Muhammadu Buhari. “We think that when elders talk they should show wisdom rather than make people begin to wonder what type of warped logic is being unleashed”. 

HURIWA called on Nigerians in their millions to resist the subterranean plots by President Muhammadu Buhari to extend his tenure by employing surrogates who would flood the media to inundate us with unsustainable and illogical calls for third term for Buhari who has virtually become a dictator. HURIWA demanded from Chief Clarke what he intends to achieve by causing civil war with such an absolutely irrational proposal. 

“Those who want us the younger ones to call them elders and respect their old age because of what that concept means in a lot of African cultures and cosmological deduction as symbolising wisdom,  then these elders must not speak like little minds and make proposals that may imperil the entire nation all because of the pursuit of some selfish ambitions for some alleged or perceived pay masters.”

“President Muhammadu Buhari is the major cause of the escalation of violence and terrorism in Nigeria since the last 7 years that he came on board controversially through two very disreputable elections. Muhammadu Buhari’s administration gave birth to the insurgency of Fulani terrorists in the North West because of his nepotistic appointments of only Fulani heads of internal security institutions like the DSS, NIA, Immigration, Customs, Police, Prisons, civil defence”. 

“President Muhammadu Buhari in the last 7 years has left the compromised internal security chiefs who have looked on as Fulani terrorists have amassed assorted military grade weapons of mass destruction and have shot down military jets. Is it by giving him 6 months that he will solve what he refused to resolve in 7 years? Even if you give Muhammadu Buhari till eternity, he can’t improve the security situation because he is grossly incompetent and is a bigoted Islamic religious extremist. So proposing any extension of tenure after his statutory two terms of 4 years each, is a nationsl suicide and we wonder what the intentions are for this anti democratic and anti people position being canvassed by someone who wants us to address him as an elder or is Mr Clarke in another planet these past 7 years?”

HURIWA recalled that senior lawyer, Robert Clarke, SAN, Monday in Abuja, said the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), should serve for an extra six months to give him enough time to address the country’s security woes.

Clarke stated that with less than a year to the 2023 elections there was not enough time to address the insecurity to ensure a safe exercise.Speaking on Arise Television programme, he noted that the Constitution provided the President to extend his tenure for six months in the first instance if conditions were not ripe for an election.

HURIWA however dismissed these positions as infantile and unreasonable just as the Rights group said rather than tenure extension,  President Muhammadu Buhari should either be impeached for failing to protect lives and property of Nigerians as canvassed by Section 14(2) (b) of the Nigerian Constitution as the primary duty of government or resign.

The Rights group through its National  Coordinator  Comrade Emmanuel  Onwubiko condemned unreservedly, Chief Clarkes position and described it as retrogressive and not different from the anti democracy action of Chief Arthur Nzeribe who went to the Abuja High Court then to secure the controversial annulment of the 1993 June 12th election  adjudged by the local and international observers as free, fair and transparent.”

 HURIWA said if President Muhammadu Buhari can’t solve the insecurity in 7 years, he can’t resolve it even if he is given two life times to rule Nigeria. HURIWA said election of 2023 must go on come rain come shine or even full scale war just as the group called on Nigerians to reject the position of Chief Clarke which will plunge Nigeria into a civil war should President Muhammadu Buhari tries to extend his tenure by even one day. 

Why govs, security agencies must end killing of cows in South-East –HURIWA

Civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, (HURIWA)  on Tuesday, tasked the five governors of states in the South-East as well as security agents to end the killing of cows by gunmen in Enugu, Imo, Anambra, Abia and Ebonyi states. HURIWA has also condemned the spate of killings by all kinds of groups including the security agencies and the so-called Unknown gunmen just as HURIWA appeals for peaceful and constructive dialogues. 

HURIWA, in a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, stressed that not only Fulani pastoralists are involved in cattle business in the South-East but a lot of Igbo businessmen are also engaged in the trade.

The group said the consequence of continuous killing of cattle by gunmen angry against the Fulani ethnic stock for whatever reason would affect Igbo traders and son of the soil who are also actively involved in cattle business in the five South-East states.

According to media reports, gunmen, last Sunday, attacked and set ablaze a truckload of cows along Ezinifite-Uga expressway in Aguata Local Government Area of Anambra State. The Sunday incident was not the first as gunmen, in February 2022, attacked a cattle market in Aba in Abia State, killing eight traders and 51 cows.

Reacting, HURIWA’s Onwubiko said, “Security agents must stop the condemnable trend of mass killing of cattle in the South-East. Nobody’s business deserves to be attacked no matter the crimes they have committed; the law should be allowed to take its cause.

“Also, the fact that the cattle are not owned by Fulani or Hausas alone but by Igbo traders too is enough reason for aggrieved persons to simmer down and stop unleashing terror on cattle businesses in the South-East.

“It is noteworthy that the cattle business is a provider of jobs for teaming youths in the South-East as it is a business for all. According to the Lagos State Commissioner for Agriculture, Abisola Olusanya, the state consumes over 6,000 heads of cattle daily and over 1.8 million heads of cattle annually with a yearly a transactional value of over N328bn. This is a lot of money.

“Without any assumption, the total volume of cattle consumed in the whole of South-East and the money that accrued from it should be equivalent to that of Lagos or above it. It is, therefore, important that the cattle value chain and business be protected against gunmen attacks as the continuous killing of hundreds and thousands of cows in the South-East will lead to economic hemorrhaging. The South-East governors must act immediately and dialogue with all stakeholders and aggrieved persons to end the whole mess. There must a transparent enforcement of extant laws against open grazing of cattle just as the Rights group said the spiralling violence in South East will do nobody any good but destroy the Igbo homeland”. 

May 10, 2022
Emmanuel Onwubiko
National Coordinator – HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA)