MASSACRE OF SOLDIERS BY TERRORISTS: YOUR NSA, SERVICE CHIEFS ARE INCOMPETENT -HURIWA Tells Buhari

Frontline Civil rights advocacy group- HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has asked President Muhammadu Buhari to sack all his military service chiefs, the Director General of the Department of State Services,  the Inspector-General of Police and the National Security Adviser Major General Babagana Monguno(rtd) for gross incompetence and for crass dereliction of duty.  

The Rights group said President Muhammadu Buhari ought to stop his frequent lamentations over his failings in the area of security because that is not why he was elected but to take immediate and comprehensive measures to dismiss any or all of his service chiefs now since they have manifested through their actions and inactions that they have not got what it takes to defeat terrorists just as the security Chiefs most of whom are Moslem Northerners are behaving like they are aiding and abetting the successes recorded so far by Islamic terrorists abd the Fulani terrorists. 

HURIWA reacted against the backdrop of the massacre if soldiers in Shiroro Dan a strategic National asset by the Islamists terrorists known as boko haram even as the Prominent Civil rights advocacy group-HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA accused the President of abandoning his duty to gallivanting and globetrot meaningless over the World. 

HURIWA recalled that  the Nigerian Army has confirmed the attack in Shiroro Local Government Area of Niger State by bandits who killed scores of security operatives, including soldiers and police.

According to reports, at least 43 people, including 30 soldiers and seven mobile police personnel and civilians were killed when the armed men stormed the Gold mining site. They also abducted several Chinese nationals.

Confirming the attack, the Nigerian Army, in a statement issued by its Director Army Public Relations, Brigadier General Onyema Nwachukwu, said some bandits were also gunned down during the attack.“Sadly, a number of personnel paid the supreme price in the fierce firefight that ensued.“Subsequently, the location has been reinforced and troops are on the trail of the criminals with some already neutralized.The GOC 1 Division has moved to the location to take charge of the follow up operations”, the statement added.

HURIWA however said the Army should cover her face in shame that it is unable to defend the territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Nigeria even when the defence sector collects the giant allocations every year from the federally released annual budgets and wondered why despite the fact that the governmenxt made claims of buying equipment from all over the World, the Islamists are being allowed to crush a trained and professional Army such as the Nigeria Army just as the Rights group said it is now certain that some saboteurs within the Army may be the moles selling the Country out to Jihadists. HURIWA has therefore called for the sack of all the service chiefs and is asking Nigerians not to die in silence but to stage protests to demand action from President Muhammadu Buhari to stop the widening insecurity in Nigeria. HURIWA said it is unfortunate that Nigerians are letting the government abandon it’s statutory duty to the citizens but failing to actively protest the heightened state of insecurity in the Country and demand the dismissal of compromised security Chiefs and the National Security Adviser who has absolutely nothing to offer. 

DSS meddling in religious matters, should focus on its mandate – HURIWA

Civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, (HURIWA) on Friday, knocked the Department of State Services over the reported rescue of 21 Almajirai from an Evangelical Church Winning All branch in the Jos North Local Government Area of Plateau State.

HURIWA’s National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, in a statement, carpeted the secret police for abandoning its constitutional roles to pursue religious agenda.

The group alleged that the DSS has been pursuing Islamic agenda and challenged the secret police to produce any Christian girl it had rescued from the claws of child marriage by Islamic fundamentalists and northern Muslims such as Emirs.

Recall that the DSS, in a report by Daily Trust, dated June 27, 2022, claimed that the 21 Almajirai boys were forcefully converted to Christianity in the church but the ECWA General Secretary, Rev. Yunusa Nmadu, denied the allegations.

Reacting, HURIWA’s Onwubiko said, “The Department of State Services has apparently strayed from its original roles and functions as it is empowered by Instrument SSS No.1 of 1999 made pursuant to Section 6 of the National Security Agencies  Act 1986 Cap. 74, LFN 2004.

“According to the statutes, the roles of the DSS include the prevention and detection of any crime against the internal security of Nigeria; protection and preservation of all non-military classified matters concerning the internal security of Nigeria.

“Others include the prevention, detection and investigation of threats of Espionage, Subversion, Sabotage, Terrorism, Separatist agitations, Inter-group conflicts, Economic crimes of National security dimension and threats to law and order; provision of protective security for designated principal Government functionaries, sensitive installations and visiting dignitaries; provision of timely advice to Government on all matters of National security interest and such other functions as may, from time to time, be assigned to it.

“But it is unfortunate that the DSS has abandoned these roles to pursue religious agenda like claiming the rescue of Almajirai from a church.

“HURIWA is therefore forced to ask the DSS under the control of the Director General, Yusuf Bichi, how many Christian schoolgirls the secret police had rescued from Islamic fundamentalists and northern Muslim element who abducted and coerced them into forced marriages.

“According to Open Doors International, an organisation that serves the persecuted Christians worldwide, over 40 Christian girls were abducted, Islamised and married off to Muslim men in Kano State between 2011 and 2016 alone. The case have since soared in the last seven years since the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), assumed office. Cases are numerous from Jos to Kano, Kaduna to Yobe, Sokoto to Maiduguri, to mention just a few.

“In 2016, a Bayelsa State-born Christian girl, 13-year-old Ese Oruru, was abducted by a Muslim, Yunusa Dahiru, and taken to the northern city of Kano as his wife. The young girl was impregnated by Dahiru and the DSS was nowhere to be found.

“In May 2017, the daughter of a Nigerian church leader, 16-year-old Janet Habila, was forcibly converted to Islam and married off to her Muslim boss by a Shari’a court in Niger State.

“Also, in Bauchi, 16-year-old Jamila Noma, was brought before an Islamic court on the orders of her father because she became a Christian and rejected her father’s decision to marry her to a Muslim man.

“Still fresh in mind is case of Leah Sharibu, one of the over 110 Christian schoolgirls kidnapped from Dabchi in Yobe State on February 19, 2018. Whilst most of the others have been released, Leah was held back by the terrorists for not renouncing her Christian faith. The kidnapping of over 270 female Christian schoolgirls from Chibok in Borno State in April 2014 is also fresh in mind but the DSS was nowhere to be found in all of these fatal human rights violations.

“The DSS should stick to its job prescriptions and stop meddling in religious affairs or do so impartial for all faiths including Islam, Christians, traditional religion and all faiths as enshrined in Section 38 of the 1999 constitution.”

July 1, 2022

Emmanuel Onwubiko

National Coordinator – HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA).