PDP IS FINISHED FOR PLOTTING ANTI IGBO AGENDA-: SAYS HURIWA

A leading Pro-democracy and Civil Rights Advocacy Group- HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has accused the current hierarchy of the leading opposition political party in Nigeria- People’s Democratic (PDP) of engaging in a choreographed SUICIDE MISSION by hatching and implementing  active but corrosive and toxic anti- Igbo antics by withholding the zoning of the Presidency in 2023 to the South East to assuage the longstanding systematic and systemic marginalisation of the South East of Nigeria in the political scheme of things.

HURIWA also accused the Rivers State governor Mr. Nyesom Wike of inflicting irreparable damage to the sole of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) by hijacking the party’s National secretariat due to the overwhelming selfish ambition he is nursing to corner the slot of the candidacy of the party for the 2023 Presidency just as the Rights group accused political weaklings amongst some corrupt minded Igbo elites of conniving with the Rivers State’s governor to plant IGBOPHOBIA amongst the highest echelons of the PDP. 

HURIWA said the fear of the unknown is driving Governor Wike’s horrific ambition to seize the Presidential slot of PDP because he is mortally afraid that should his arch political rival Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi gets the Presidential slot of the APC and wins the 2023 Presidency then certainly,  he Governor Nyesom Wike could face political persecution by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission over alleged financial indiscretion as the governor of Rivers State since the last 8 years. The Rights also carpeted the Rivers State governor for criticising Mr. Peter Obi for quitting the heavily cash compromised PDP. 

HURIWA which commended the former governor of Anambra State Mr. Peter Obi for displaying highest sense of conviction and political principles to walk out of the collapsing political house called PDP due to the stinking CASH-AND- CARRY animalistic tendencies within the leading opposition political party the PDP which is bent on chasing away the South-East of Nigeria from her fold because having used and dumped the South East of Nigeria,  the party now wishes to become a slave of the North or of Mr. Nyesom Wike. 

HURIWA affirmed thus: “These two tendencies of Atiku Abubakar and Nyesom Wike have combined to ensure that South East of Nigeria does not get her deserved pride of place in the party they had laboured for over the past twenty years even at the risks of suffering some of the harshest policies of marginalisation and political apartheid from the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration for the last 7 years because the South East has since 1999 been voting enmasse for the People’s Democratic Party”. 

HURIWA has also commended the immediate past Minority Leader Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe for abandoning the PDP because of the anti-Igbo sentiments and the antics of divide and rule just as the RIGHTS GROUP said the PDP has lost the support of the South East of Nigeria and will pay dearly for this sabotage of the political right of the South East of Nigeria.  

HURIWA recalled that the Senate Minority Leader Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe had tendered a letter to the Senate President indication that he has just resigned from his position even as this was sequel to his resignation from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) under which he was elected to the Senate in 2019. Abaribe announced his resignation in two separate letters – one addressed to his Ward Chairman and the other to the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, dated 24th and 26th May, 2022 respectively.

HURIWA praised the Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe and Mr. Peter Obi for showing courage and determination to stand for justice, truth, social and political ideological principles and for taking a long walk away from the house of scam that the People’s Democratic Party has suddenly become even as the Rights group told the PDP that its only redemption is to concede the slot of the President of Nigeria in the 2023 General election to the South East of Nigeria in line with the provisions of the constitution of the party.

HURIWA said zoning of offices by political parties is a fulfillment of Section 14(3) of the 1999 Constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria as amended which speaks to the issue of respecting FEDERAL CHARACTER PRINCIPLES in the allocation of offices and projects in the federation.

HURIWA said it offends the principles of natural justice and national unity that Igbo that has one of the three largest population of Nigeria has been treated with the short-end of the stick through the connivance of the Hausa/Fulani North and some reactionary elitist elements of the South West extraction for their selfish agenda which is undermining National cohesion.   

The Backstory Of The Residents Permit For Fulani Quartered In Military Barracks In Igboland And Elsewhere In The South And Middle-Belt

Tony Nnadi, 

NINAS Secretariat, 

25 May 2022

As the LNC and its NINAS Allies blocked the first few steps of newly installed President Muhammadu Buhari to launch his FULANIZATION and RUGA Campaign after he violently took power in 2015, Buhari in some kind of exasperation, openly directed that all the bushes behind all the Military Barracks across  Nigeria (traditionally used for training exercises) should be used to as Temporary Ranches for the large army of “Fulani herdsmen” who had turned up everywhere, but who were being resisted everywhere they went, pending the establishment of the RUGA (Fulani Colonies), the Buhari Government and its Military and the National Assembly were forcefully pushing to establish across Nigeria.

The lost but found Identity/ Residents Permit from the illicit Fulani resident in the Army Barracks at Ohafia is evidence that the said Buhari directive was carried out, and an unquantified number of Fulani invaders are now ensconced in the bosom of Military Barracks across Nigeria.

It would be recalled that sometime in 2021, there was an incident in Okitipupa where a large convoy of buses had brought in  and discharged Fulani young men into the Army Barracks there, prompting widespread alarm by local vigilantes and indigenes who had been rebuffed and turned back as they sought explanations from the Military Base where these Fulani passengers were taken into. The story was all over the internet at the time.

I made this note to alert us that while we distract ourselves with the feel-good noise of “Biafra Nation” and “Yoruba Nation” and impede the task of the strategic pushback required [for that wanted  Self-Determination], our adversary is digging in and deep into our midst in a manner that further compromises our already precarious security situation.

For the non-Caliphate rest of Nigeria, with the complete DELEGITIMIZATION of the 1999 Constitution already accomplished by the Nigerian Indigenous Nationalities Alliance for Self-Determination (NINAS) the only viable remediation strategy on the Table right now, against the unfolding catastrophe of Fulani murderous conquest invasion is the immediate ENFORCEMENT of the December 16, 2020 Constitutional Force Majeure (CFM), to immediately render the presence of the Fulani, in and out of uniform, ILLEGITIMATE and UNTENABLE throughout the Alliance Territories, until the Union Dispute raised by that CFM is resolved by REFERENDUMS.

Faster than any other mechanism, it is also this enforcement that will IMMEDIATELY activate the armed Self-Defence component of the right to Self-Determination currently being asserted by Nigeria’s  indigenous nationalities in a manner to upend the instant criminalization of any effort at armed Self-Defence under the defeated 1999 Constitution.

As usual, those who wish to argue are at liberty to go ahead but it is only a matter of little time for things to crystallize beyond debate, but the cost of ignorance and delay will be reckoned in blood.

UNKNOWN GUNMEN: GOV. UMAHI IS A PERSON OF INTEREST TO HELP RESOLVE THE MYSTERY- SAYS HURIWA 

Prominent Civil rights advocacy group-: HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has asked the elected political leaders of the South East zone in the National Assembly, the governors and traditional leaders of all Igbo speaking States to task the Ebonyi State governor Dave Umahi to kindly volunteer information that could lead to the unraveling of the faces behind the Killings in the South East of Nigeria since he has already identified the Ethnicity of the unknown gunmen. HURIWA said IGBO PEOPLE MUST DEMAND THIS INFORMATION IN GREATER DETAILS URGENTLY.

HURIWA recalled that the  Ebonyi State Governor, Dave Umahi had reportedly the unknown gunmen terrorising southeast Nigeria and killing people as those who hail from the region and not outsiders.

Answering questions regarding the identities of the killers on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, Umahi said the atrocities committed in the region were largely carried out by youths from there.

He said, “People tend to be funny at times when they say that we have been invaded by outsiders, but it is not true.

“We have people from other regions that are in the South East. There’s no tribe that doesn’t have criminality. I wouldn’t say some of these people from other tribes don’t engage in criminality.

“What I call bandits are people that engage in violence; and they are our people, South-East people. The youths, some of them are in this category.

“So, when people say insecurity in the South-East is being imported, I do not buy that. Because I am a Governor, I do security reports. We have arrested a number of these people, and it should be that they are about five or 14 per cent of those outside the South-East. If we have 90 per cent of our youths engaging in these things, you cannot say the South-East is being infiltrated.”He also said, “We engaged with some of the bandits, we made contacts with some of them. We had to say, what is your problem? If it is infrastructure, we have done that. “If it is jobs creation, we have addressed that through direct labour. The bandits are angry about the lack of what to do, and we said to them that if your only trouble is that you didn’t have formal education, there is no job for you to do.

“We put them together and said, if you will stop attacks on our strategic inf rastructure, killing of our people and attack on security agencies, we can rehabilitate you. So, we have rehabilitated a number of them.”

HURIWA in a statement by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko praised the Ebonyi State governor for publicly disclosing the Ethnic identity of the UNKNOWN GUNMEN thereby ending the spectre of misidentity of these murdererous terrorists destroying the Igbo Motherland. HURIWA however said rather than engaging in media showmanship in a matter as sensitive as the terrorists destroying the South East of Nigeria,  the Ebony State governor should be challenged by all Igbo people to meet with the National security Adviser, the DG of DSS, the Chief of Army Staff and the IGP together with the governors of the SOUTH EAST REGION and Civil society leaders of South East extraction so the governor can do the South East the favour of FULL DISCLOSURE ON THOSE UNKNOWN GUNMEN HE HAS NOW REVEALED THEIR ETHNICITY AND HE MUST DO THIS WITHIN 74 HOURS OR BE TAKEN AS A JOKER. 

BUHARI GOVT BREEDING POMPOUS CORRUPT NORTHERNERS WITH SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT – HURIWA 

Civil rights advocacy group, HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA(HURIWA), on Monday, lambasted the regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), for breeding extremely corrupt government officials especially of northern extraction who feel a sense of entitlement.

HURIWA, in a statement by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, said with the gargantuan and unprecedent corrupt practices perpetrated by government officials under Buhari, Nigeria might not find money to run the next government. “It is becoming inevitable that with the highway robberies of public funds perpetrated by officials holding strategic national offices from the core Northern States like the President,  Nigeria may need to borrow from China to be able to pay the first few months’ salaries of incoming President after May 29th 2022 if this administration won’t scuttle the election  by this deliberate permission and tolerance of heightened state of insecurity in the Country”. 

The group said many occasions have suggested that Buhari’s anti-graft fight is a grand charade as the regime was only a breeding ground to purloin Nigeria’s commonwealth. “People are wondering if the Northerners holding strong positions in the central government are not looting to set up their earthly paradise elsewhere other than this Nigeria that they are running down and killing with staggering Crimes of corruption and brazen brigandage. If this proposition is incorrect, why then are Northern officials in government going ahead with massive looting even when a few of them have been exposed but nothing much by way of prosecutions have been done?”

HURIWA cited the promotion of former acting Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibrahim Magu, from a commissioner of police cadre to that of an assistant inspector general of police despite that he was sacked for alleged graft-related reasons and alleged abuse of office- allegations that till now are been hidden from public view and the report of the investigative panel headed by a retired President of the Court of Appeal for which billions of public funds would have been spent,  has remained a mystery and then from the blues the main character who was dismissed from the EFCC was then promoted to AIG in retirement even when the entire South East of Nigeria got just one AIG amongst serving officers.

The group also pointed to the recent alleged graft purportedly perpetrated by another northerner in the person of the suspended Accountant-General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, who is being probed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission for alleged fraud to the tune of N80bn and at least 17 properties in choice places in Nigeria and overseas. 

Also, according to Nobel laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, Buhari squashed a putrid egg against Nigerians’ faces with the pardon granted ex-governors of Plateau State, Senator Joshua Dariye; and Taraba State, Rev. Jolly Nyame.

The two former governors were jailed for stealing N2.7bn in total and are members of the ruling All Progressives Congress. Many civil society organisations had censured the President and noted that the pardon of Dariye and Nyame would encourage corruption.

Recall also that another northerner, the then Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority, Hadiza Bala-Usman, was suspended last year for alleged corruption to the tune of billions of naira but she is not prosecuted but left to flex around but not returned to her post and no words to the members of the Nigerian Public. 

HURIWA also said Nigerians must not forget that another northerner and a top police officer, DCP Abba Kyari, is in the custody of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency for alleged narcotics-related offences and alleged corruption of unimaginable proportion also traced to international fraudster, Ramon Abass aka Hushpuppi. But government has done everything imaginable to refuse to extradited him to the USA but the same government has extradited Other Nigerians from the South to the USA to face charges over alleged fraud of less than the amount for which the disgraced police officer is being sought by the FBI by for which the Northern born AGF has done everything to undermine the extradition application of the Government of the USA.

While the United States wanted Kyari to be extradited to the US, the Nigerian government has tactically delayed him in Nigeria here, a form of protection and under the extant extradition treaty, if the application lingers for upto a year, it will become status barred meaning the suspect being sought in USA can no longer be surrendered. 

HURIWA’s Onwubiko said, “Nigerians are tired of the grand deception of the Buhari regime. It is disturbing how corruption has toppled the administration’s campaign promises and the fact that virtually all the top players in government are suspected of corruption. 

“Look at corruption in humanitarian affairs ministry. The corruption in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation. The Accountant General’s office. Corruption in the way All Progressives Congress members bought N100 million presidential forms by proxies. Truth be told, Buhari and the APC has killed any anti-corruption it met in 2015 with the cash for tickets policy it introduced towards 2023.

“We are afraid that the country won’t find money to run the next government going by the extremely heightened levels of corruption in the APC administration. Nigerians must reject any party deep in corruption in the next election and must vote in accountable leaders.”

May 23, 2022

Emmanuel Onwubiko

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

The World Must Speak Against Plots To Kill Bishop Kukah: HURIWA Alerts

Civil Rights Advocacy Group- HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has appealed to the President of the United States of America Joe Biden,  the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Congress of the United States of America to urge the Nigerian Government to take steps to stop Islamic extremists from succeeding in their subterranean and openly brazen plots to cause religious war in Nigeria by killing one of Nigeria’s most respected Christian Icon- the Bishop of Sokoto Catholic Diocese Rt.Rev.Dr.Mathew Hassan-Kukah. 

HURIWA said under no circumstances should any harm happen to Bishop Mathew Hassan-Kukah just as the Rights group said if the DSS fails to arrest the identified Islamic preachers that have made direct threats against Bishop Kukah, it should be taken as a message that President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration supports these threats because the President is the Commander-in-chief of the Armed forces and the DSS operates at his beck and call. President Muhammadu Buhari would be held accountable should any harm come to Bishop Mathew Hassan-Kukah because on many occasions the President’s Spokesmen have openly accused Bishop Kukah of undermining the administration.  

HURIWA has also expressed consternation and disappointment that the Holy See has maintained inexplicable silence even as Islamic Fundamentalists are waging silent war against Christians including the recent killing of a Christian girl and a 200 level Student of the Shehu Shagari College of Education Sokoto Miss Deborah Samuel Yakubu who was openly stoned to death and burnt by a mob of Islamists in the presence of over 100 armed security forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. HURIWA has tasked the Vatican Representative in Nigeria to relate to Pope Francis about the ordeals that Christians are subjected to by President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration. 

HURIWA said there is now a carefully choreographed waves of attacks by armed Islamists all over the Country and especially in the North in such places as Borno, Bauchi  and Sokoto States in which these murderous extremists apparently funded by some fifth columnists working towards achieving anarchy and doom in Nigeria are now framing up Christian girls for the so-called blasphemy and these Northern States are actually supportive of these mobsters committing crimes against humanity in the name of religion just as the Rights group said the World leaders must speak up now before religious war breaks out in Nigeria. 

Specifically, HURIWA is worried that Islamic Clerics are making open and tendentious  threats to kill the most respected Christian Leader of the contemporary Times who is the Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto Rt.Rev.Dr. Mathew Hassan-Kukah only because he is a voice that condemns political corruption of the Federal Government and speaks out against all oppressive tendencies of government against not just the poor Christians of Nigeria but the entirety of the poor population in the Federation. 

“We are worried that on many occasions these Islamic Clerics have been heard and seen on videos that are going viral making open threats to kill Bishop Kukah but the Department of State Services, the Police and all the armed security forces have feigned ignorance and even when their attention is called to these threats they do not take steps to arrest those issuing these death threats as if to say that those making these threats have the by-in and tacit support of the Federal government of President Muhammadu Buhari who has in anycase failed to check the expanding frontiers of terrorism waged on Nigerians by his Fulani kinsmen since the last 7 years.”

“HURIWA’S attention has been called to the video that has emerged of an Islamic cleric calling on his followers to ensure they kill the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Most Reverend Matthew Kukah .

This is coming days after some Muslim youths lynched a female student, Deborah Yakubu, for alleged blasphemy in Sokoto. 

Speaking in Hausa, the Islamic cleric described Bishop Kukah as “The pagans’ leader of Sokoto State. The video shared by a journalist, Simon Reef Musa , on his Facebook page, translates thus:

“The pagans’ leader of Sokoto state, Matthew Hassan Kukah, is said to have said something that I read on Facebook. Let him continue. I swear we shall kill him. We are not joking.“Let him continue. We must kill him. Let us desist from talking on this matter (killing of Deborah). She abused the prophet and may God bless the people who delivered instant judgement on her.

“Of course, there were mistakes because those sent did things they were not supposed to do. After being killed for abusing the prophet, why then engage in burning down property?”

HURIWA has therefore accused the security agents and the Federal government of conniving with armed and Islamic extremists to continue to issue threats against Bishop Kukah apparently because even the President has on many occasions insulted the respected Christian Leader for endeavouring to criticise the bad policies of the current government that has plunged Nigeria into a state of heightened insecurity and general climate of fear and reckless disregard for the sanctity of life. 

HURIWA accused the Federal Government and the Northern Government of extending tacit supports to the Islamic mobs that are burning down Churches, places of businesses of Christians  in Sokoto and the latest attacks in Bauchi over similar allegation of blasphemy as if to say Nigeria is now under a government of Islamic Mobsters. 

HURIWA recalled that a pastor has allegedly been injured and many houses burnt by irate youths who went on the rampage over alleged blasphemy in the Katangan area of Warji Local Government Area of Bauchi State.

HURIWA said trouble started when a message was allegedly circulated on social media that a Christian girl in the town allegedly engaged in blasphemy of Islam.

A source, who spoke to the media confirmed the incident, saying, “Yes, the incident is true. It is an aftermath of the incident of the alleged blasphemy that happened in Sokoto last week.

“What I learnt was that a Christian girl allegedly posted and commented on something on social media which has to do with the incident in Sokoto and that was how it started. The situation there is more than tension since many houses have been burnt down.”

HURIWA has therefore urge World leaders to act fast and put diplomatic pressure on President Muhammadu Buhari to be a President for all and to give direct orders for armed Islamists causing chaos all over the Country to be brought under Control and to stop the mob killings and lynching of Nigerians in the name of any religion. 

COMRADE EMMANUEL ONWUBIKO:

NATIONAL COORDINATOR:

HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA). 21ST MAY 2022.

Security agencies must stop branding actors, civilians as IPOB members –HURIWA 

Civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, (HURIWA) on Saturday, said security agencies including the Nigeria Police Force and the Nigerian Army must stop framing up Nollywood actors and innocent civilians as members of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra. 

HURIWA is worried too that the African Traditional Religion is being criminalised and demonised by security forces in the South East of Nigeria who regularly invade sacred shrines, desecrate them under the guise of pursuing suspected members of the now proscribed INDIGENOUS PEOPLE OF BIAFRA (IPOB). 

HURIWA, in a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, said the trend of trying to score erroneous points by detaining and branding innocent Igbo youths and prominent sons and daughters as criminals is disconcerting just as the Rights group bemoans the declining professional practices amongst members of the security forces.

The group said security agencies must forthwith release all Igbo youths falsely detained and languishing in cells and prisons all over the country.

HURIWA recalled that the Imo State Police Command arrested a Nollywood actor known as Hycent Azunna and branded him a member of IPOB’s Eastern Security Network, a claim which his friends nullified as untrue.

Also, last October, the Department of State Services and the police colluded and arrested veteran Nollywood actor, Chiwetalu Agu, for alleged promotion of Biafra and for wearing a Biafra outfit while distributing bread and other items to the poor. He was humiliated and spent days in detention but later released when public outrage greeted his arrest. No charge was brought against him as the allegations of the security agents against him proved false.

Similarly, 21-year-old lady, Glory Okolie, was arrested last year by officers of the Intelligence Response Team in Owerri, Imo State. Okolie was arrested on June 17, 2021, the same day she was to sit for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Exam.

The police as usual erroneously branded Okolie as a girlfriend of an IPOB member, subjected her to inhumane treatment like washing of their clothes, cooking and all sorts of nonsense. 

The police held on to her for months till they were forced to release her this year due to the outrage and agitation of activists, civil society organisations and human rights lawyers.

HURIWA’s Onwubiko on Saturday said, “The arbitrary arrests of youths in Owerri and labelling them as IPOB members is highly disturbing.  Now, if tenants are owing landlords, the police is bribed to frame up the tenant as IPOB and paraded and some ends up disappearing for life.

“The cases are numerous from Chiwetalu Agu to Hycent Azunna to Glory Okolie. Many like them have been persecuted and some even killed. A former Archbishop of Catholic Archdiocese of Owerri, Anthony Obinna, once raised the alarm of abandoned corpses of young Igbo boys slaughtered and abandoned at Federal Medical Centres by the police.

“The infractions by police and the Army in Imo and use of extrajudicial killings must stop. Security agencies must not use Igbo youths to score points or prove to their bosses that they are working. While we encourage clamp down on criminals and ‘unknown gunmen’ turning the South-East upside down and appeal for greater use of hard core intelligence driven skills to flush out mass killers and hoodlums, HURIWA note with seriousness that the framing up of Igbo youths as criminals which is utterly nonsensical and smacks of apartheid practices and ethnic profiling must stop.”

May 21, 2022

Emmanuel Onwubiko

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

Closure Of Dei-Dei Market And Letting Okada Riders Who Are Mostly From Niger Republic To Operate Is Apartheid: HURIWA Tells FCT Minister

Frontline civil society group:- HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has asked the minister of FCT Malam Muhammad Bello to re-open Dei- Dei market, find a way to rebuild the infrastructures destroyed by commercial motorcyclists in a fracas yesterday Wednesday or ban the operation of commercial motorcyclists in Deidei and Kubwa for justice, equity and fairness. 
The Rights group said it is offensive to the principle of natural justice that two parties were involved in a fracas but the authority rather than make peace and create harmony and reconciliation decided to back one of the combatants because of religious motive. HURIWA said the role of a minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is that of service without bitterness or sectionalism since ministers are appointed for all of Nigeria. 
“We do not want to believe that it is true that the FCT Minister who is a Nigerian will adopt controversial and unnatural steps that offends the commercial interests of his fellow citizens and let off the motor cyclists who are largely illegal aliens from Niger Republic, Chad and just a sprinkling of moslem Northern Nigerians only because traders at Dei Dei market that fought with Okada riders are mostly Igbos from Southern Nigeria and are Christians by faith Orientation.
“We call on President Muhammadu Buhari who constitutionally is the governor of FCT to ask his subordinate the FCT Minister to adopt solution that won’t be seen as favouring a party in a fight by two parties only because the favoured party are almost 100 percent Moslems sharing same faith system with the minister. Leadership is not to bow to religious or ethnic sentiments. leadership must be altruistic, nationalistic,  just, fair and equitable and the Minister who has worked harmoniously with peoples of all faith systems and ethnicity for years, should not now be remotely connected to this sort of story of open but shameful partiality and crude biasness.”
HURIWA recalled that the FCT Minister, Malam Muhammad Bello, has ordered the immediate closure of the Dei-Dei International Building Material Market following yesterday’s violence which claimed four lives.
Trouble started at the market when an unidentified female trader reportedly fell of a commercial motorcycle and was crushed to death by an articulated vehicle.
Other traders from the market then burnt the motorcycle blaming the biker of reckless riding. Their action however prompted a reprisal from okada riders in the area who regrouped in large number and went into the timber section of the market and set it ablaze.
The FCT Minister while inspecting the scene of the incident with FCT Commissioner of Police Sunday Babaji, the Director State Security Services, alongside other sister security agencies and top officials of the FCT Administration, directed for the indefinite closure of the market.
Bello directed the community and the market leaders to fish out the hoodlums responsible for the crisis.
He said, “The community and market leaders must fish out hoodlums and bad eggs among them, unfortunately this time around hoodlums carry arms and they shot innocent people. As a matter of fact, I saw four corpses this is very sad and totally unacceptable in Abuja.
“We have agreed with security agencies that full scale investigations will be done, and the communities have to be part and parcel of the solution or else there will be no peace. In the interim the timber market and the surrounding markets, including all the activities along the road that have clustered it and made it unpassable will all stop untill the technical team reviews everything, and then we will take the next decision.
“I am appealing to other communities within the FCT that there is no tribal or religious misunderstanding because all the leadership of various communities have lived here in peace for many years. This is simply the matter of criminals and hoodlums taking the laws into their hands” he said.
On his part, the vice chairman of Timber Shed market Dei-Dei, Ifeanyi Chibata told the minister and his team that about 45 to 50 shops were burnt with 25 vehicles set ablaze during the unrest.
The secretary Tomato and Onion Sellers Association Dei-Dei, Dahiru Garba Mani disclosed that four persons were killed during the clash in the market.
They both appealed to the minister of FCT to make provision for a police division with adequate personnel.
HURIWA has however asked the minister to rescind his decision which is offensive to Constitutionalism, equity, fairness and equality before the law of natural justice and respect to human rights of all. 

Explosion: HURIWA calls for dismissal of Kano police commissioner 

Civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), on Thursday, demanded the sacking of the Commissioner of Police in Kano State, Mr. Sama’ila Dikko, for jumping to conclusion that the explosion that rocked the Sabon Gari area of the state on Tuesday was a gas explosion and not a bomb blast.

HURIWA, in a statement by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, lambasted the police boss for declaring the root cause of the disaster without any investigation, even as residents and eyewitnesses strongly said on live television interviews that the explosion was as a result of a bomb blast.

The explosion rocked the Aba Road of the area in the early hours of Tuesday, killing nine 

with many others injured.

The state Commissioner of Police (Dikko) had while giving an update on the incident, said it was a gas explosion from a welder’s shop close to a nursery and primary school.

But eyewitnesses disagreed with the police boss saying the incident “was not a gas explosion, but a bomb, due to the high-density vibration,” emphasising that it shook houses located about five kilometre away from the scene of the explosion.

Reacting, HURIWA’s Onwubiko said, “Eyewitness spoke with Arise TV showed and they contradicted what the police said.  The witnesses said it was a suicide bomber that detonated a bomb killing himself and many others but the police lied.

“HURIWA calls for the dismissal of the police commissioner for jumping to conclusion on the cause of the explosion even before any sort of investigation is done.

“We also call for a judicial commission of inquiry by the Kano State Government together with the Federal Government and Southern Governors’ Forum because the target of the bomb blast were Igbos and other Southerners that dominate Sabon Gari Kano. 

“We also call for independent forensic probe to be done too to determine the actual cause of the explosion that eye witnesses are now attributing to bomb blasts 

“The police must show discipline and professionalism without jumping into conclusion but by exercise diligence and scrutiny in its investigations.”

May 18, 2022

Emmanuel Onwubiko

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

DSS must arrest Sheikh Abubakar Jibril for inciting Muslims against Bishop Kukah –HURIWA

Civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, (HURIWA) on Monday, tasked the Department of State Services to arrest a Kano-based Islamic cleric, Sheikh Abubakar Jibril, who is the Chief Imam of Bayero University, Kano (BUK) for allegedly inciting Muslims against the Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, Matthew Hassan-Kukah.

HURIWA, in a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, said Jibril was captured in a video that has gone viral allegedly telling his many Muslim followers to get the home address of Kukah and possibly attack the bishop if he is the person that sent Deborah Samuel Emmanuel Yakubu to the Shehu Shagari College of Education in Sokoto where she allegedly blasphemed against the Religion of Islam. 

Rampaging hoodlums on Saturday torched and vandalised at least two parishes presided over by Bishop Kukah and it took the swift response of security operatives to stop any attack on Kukah’s personal residence.

Rioters had on Thursday stoned and burnt a 200-level Home Economics student of the Shehu Shagari College of Education in Sokoto, Deborah Yakubu, for alleged blasphemy of Prophet Muhammad (SAW).

The police arrested two suspects and protesters had demanded their release. The young demonstrators turned violent, vandalised, looted and burnt traders’ shops, churches and residential apartments perceived to be owned by Christians.

HURIWA accused security agencies as well as 18 of the 19 governors in the whole of northern Nigeria of supporting the brutal killing of blasphemers and for grooming Islamic extremists through the implementation of policies skewed in favour of Moslems to the neglect of many other citizens of other faiths and belief systems in those States.

The group cited Section 10 of the 1999 constitution as saying the government of the federation or of a state shall not adopt any religion as state religion.

HURIWA’s Onwubiko said, “By this statement, HURIWA is putting the Department of State Services on notice to hold Sheikh Abubakar Jibril accountable for the fatal mob attack on Kukah’s parishes on Saturday. In fact we think the constant bashing of spokespersons of President Muhammadu Buhari against Bishop Kukah each time the Cleric issues critiques of some anti people’s and anti democracy thereby encouraging haters of truth and objectivity to target Right Reverend Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto for attacks by such Islamic fanatics as has just happened with the recorded video by the Sokoto Islamic preacher who openly incited his followers against Bishop Kukah.

“Jibril, in a trending video, erroneously accused Bishop Kukah of motivating Deborah to commit alleged blasphemy and that he should stop or else he will be dealt with. The inflammatory cleric (Jibril) then asked if they know his (Kukah’s) house and the listeners shouted, ‘Yes we do’. He is inciting them to attack Bishop Kukah.

“HURIWA charges the DSS to arrest Jibril immediately for questioning as the secret police had probed and persecuted the late deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Obadiah Mailafia; and other vocal Christian leaders like Kukah himself.

“Anything short of the arrest of Jibril is sentimental and condemnable. Nothing must happen to Kukah. Nigerians are watching and are not fools.

“HURIWA again enjoins all Nigerians of conscience to come out enmasse as announced by the Christian Association of Nigeria and protest the killing of Deborah to pressure the Muhammadu Buhari led government to serve justice on the matter and for her killers to be punished according to extant laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

May 16, 2022

Emmanuel Onwubiko

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

Gideon & Funmi Para-Mallam Peace Foundation Condemns Deborah’s Murder, Calls for Thorough Investigation

As reactions continue to trail the gruesome murder of Deborah Emmanuel, a 200 Level student of the Shehu Shagari College of Education, Sokoto, a non governmental and non for profit organisation, Gideon & Funmi Para-Mallam Peace Foundation has called for thorough investigation and proper punishment for all those involved in the barbaric act.

The peace advocacy organisation with impeccable track records in building and enthroning peace in Nigeria in a statement signed by it President Rev. Dr Gideon Para-Mallam likened Deborah’s tragedy to the tragedy of Leah Sharibu a Christian school girl that was abducted by Boko Haram terrorists a secondary school in Yobe state in 2018.

The statement reads in parts;

The Gideon & Funmi Para-Mallam Peace Foundation deplores and condemns the horrendous murder of Ms Deborah Emmanuel, a 200 Level student of Home Economics at the Shehu Shagari College of Education, Sokoto yesterday. The killers, some of who were her fellow students, took it upon themselves to stone and then burn her alive, for alleged blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad. We condemn this criminal act of injustice done to Deborah by its perpetuators and any who aided and assisted in planning this latest affront to humanity in Nigeria, those who stood by and failed to help Deborah, those who encouraged the killers, and anyone who may have incited them.

Deborah had a right to life; she had a right to live that life with dignity and to fulfil her human potential. Instead, this young woman’s life has been cut short, and in monstrous circumstances. All those dreams and hopes for the future, destroyed in a few moments of profound evil. How is it that our young people behaved in this way? They clearly think they can do what they want and will get away with it. We wish to extend our profound condolences and sympathy to her family and friends who are mourning the loss and the horrific circumstances of her murder. We are all pained.

We see this wicked act as having been facilitated by successive governments failing to respond effectively to religious extremism and violence. This impunity has gone on for too long. This is one too many and collective action is required, not rhetoric. Nigeria, under many regional and international treaties, is legally bound to protect its population from violence, abduction, abuse and other ill-treatment. There is an urgent need to adopt effective measures for the prevention, investigation, prosecution, and punishment of such abuses. The tragedy of Deborah, like the tragedy of Leah Sharibu (still in captivity) and countless others, killed or abused because of their religion, confirms how successive Nigerian governments have reneged on their international obligations. It is time to move beyond rhetoric to action. It is as simple as that. Nigerian leaders need to act to redeem this country.

This dastardly act must be thoroughly investigated, prosecuted and punished. All those involved, from the killers to their accomplices to any who may have incited them, must be held to account. We and many others here and abroad will be closely scrutinising the actions of the Sokoto State and its criminal justice system. In addition, we anticipate that the Federal Government will monitor the process to ensure compliance with the rule of law on this matter. The Nigerian government also needs to face up to its responsibilities of protecting its citizens from the violence that is engulfing this once beautiful and peaceful nation now turning ugly in the name of religion! How can we remain passive over such basic matters of life as a nation?

The murder of Deborah Emmanuel is a defining moment in our collective history. This is not the Nigeria that we love and cherish. The Para-Mallam Peace Foundation calls for calm and restraint. While demanding fundamental changes and holding the government and the perpetrators to account, Nigerians must pursue the paths of peace and justice. We commend those Islamic scholars and leaders especially the Sultan of Sokoto, whose voice is respected within the Muslim community in Nigeria, who have already spoken up against this perverse action as being plain and simple criminality, and who have appealed for calm. We welcome those Muslim voices who are speaking up against this evil. We must all act in a way that keeps this situation from spiralling out of control. JUNGLE JUSTICE IN THE NAME OF RELIGION MUST STOP!!!