HURIWA condemns presidency’s plots to destabilize Benue State: *Condemns Zamfara attacks:

Believing that the deployment of armed police operatives to the Benue State house of assembly by the Inspector General of police is meant to scuttle democracy in Benue State by instigating the unconstitutional impeachment of the governor who just defected from APC to PDP, HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has condemned the Presidency's instigated armed police interference.

HURIWA also warned the Presidency not to contemplate illegally reconvening the adjourned Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria with the subterranean plots to illegally unseat the Senate President Dr Bukola Saraki and his deputy Professor Ike Ekweremadu. In the wake of the recent clampdown on the Principal Officers of the Senate, the Upper chamber had legally adjourned till sometimes in October to allow parliamentarians take part in their respective party primary elections preparatory to coming pills next year. There were reports of moves by the Presidency to sponsor the impeachment of the Principal Officers of the Senate for purportedly facilitating the recent massive defection of 15 Senators from the former majority party in the Upper parliament to the opposition Peoples Democratic Party. HURIWA has also condemned the political manipulations of the police to destabilize the National Assembly and make way for a one party authoritarian dictatorship.

 The Rights group also took a swipe at the presidency and the national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Mr. Adams Oshomhole for politicizing the armed Fulani massacre of farmers in Benue State, HURIWA has warned that there would be consequences should the popular will of Benue people be thwarted using crude police tactics to instigate the impeachment of the Benue governor. The Rights group cautioned against forcing the people to wage violent civil disturbances to protest against perceived external interferences from the Presidency to unseat the democratically elected governor Mr. Samuel Ortom.

Relatedly, the Rights group has condemned the poor response mechanisms by the federal government towards stopping the rapidly expanding mass killings by armed bandits in Zamfara state which has so far led to the killings of thousands of peace loving people of Zamfara State.

HURIWA believes that the current national security architecture is not working even as the Rights group has asked President Buhari to respect the constitutional principle of federal character by appointing competent, efficient professionals from all parts of Nigeria to head the diverse sectors of the national security team. "The current national security team are not representatives of the broad federal Character of Nigeria because all of them are drawn from one Ethnicity and one religion thus violating the fundamental constitutional principle and also negates merits, professionalism and competences given that the appointments of the currently serving security chiefs was based purely on nepotism and favouritism. This is the underlying reason behind the manipulation of the security and military institutions to protect suspected armed Fulani herdsmen who are carrying out mass murders in North Central states including Benue state just because they share same Ethno Religious interests with those who wield military and executive powers at the center now."

Besides, the Rights group says it is not rational to employ same failed security strategies and expect a different result even as the Rights group stated that the expanding frontiers of mass killings all around Nigeria shows that the government’s current methods of safeguarding national security has failed. HURIWA has asked for immediate resigning of the nation's internal security system.

“We think that the central government headed by President Muhammadu Buhari has substantially failed Nigerians by not effectively putting in place fool proof methods of combating the widening spectre of terror attacks and armed Fulani violence all around Nigeria. The ongoing propaganda and manipulative use of security forces to conceal and fail to arrest and prosecute the real armed Fulani herdsmen responsible for the attacks is a major act of treachery and treasonable.”

On the emerging scenario in Benue State, HURIWA has condemned the politicization of the serious problems occasioned by armed Fulani attacks in Benue state even as the Rights group totally condemned the attempt at revisionism by national chairman of APC based on misplaced angst against the defection of Benue state governor to PDP. The group expressed doubts that the current government has the political will to allow law enforcement institutions exercise the authority and powers granted them by the constitution by allowing them to go after the mass murderers irrespective of the fact that they are mostly armed Fulani herdsmen sharing same religion and language with those controlling and commanding national security at the moment.

HURIWA recalled that the extant police Act clearly provides that: "The Police shall be employed for the prevention and detection of crime, the apprehension of offenders, preservation of law and order, the protection of life and property and the due enforcement of all laws and regulations with which they are directly charged and shall perform such military duties within or without Nigeria as may be required of them by, or under the authority of, this or any other act.”

HURIWA also stated that the constitution's absolutely prohibits the political manipulation of the police against opposition governors because section 215 of the constitution concedes the powers of chief security officer of a state in the governor and therefore resorting to self-help by the Presidency to unseat an opposition governor.

HURIWA specifically quoted Section 215 (1) as affirming thus: "There shall be –
(a) an Inspector-General of Police who, subject to section 216(2) of this Constitution shall be appointed by the President on the advice of the Nigeria Police Council from among serving members of the Nigeria Police Force;
(b) a Commissioner of Police for each state of the Federation who shall be appointed by the Police Service Commission.

(2) The Nigeria Police Force shall be under the command of the Inspector-General of Police and contingents of the Nigeria Police Force stationed in a state shall, subject to the authority of the Inspector-General of Police, be under the command of the Commissioner of Police of that state.

(3) The President or such other Minister of the Government of the Federation as he may authorise in that behalf may give to the Inspector-General of Police such lawful directions with respect to the maintenance and securing of public safety and public order as he may consider necessary, and the Inspector-General of Police shall comply with those direction or cause them to be compiled with.

(4) Subject to the provisions of this section, the Governor of a state or such Commissioner of the Government state as he may authorise in that behalf, may give to the Commissioner of Police of that state such lawful directions with respect to the maintenance and securing of public safety and public order within the state as he may consider necessary, and the Commissioner of Police shall comply with those directions or cause them to be complied with: Provided that before carrying out any such directions under the foregoing provisions of this subsection the Commissioner of Police may request that the matter be referred to the President or such minister of the Government of the Federation as may be authorised in that behalf by the President for his directions.

(5) The question whether any, and if so what, directions have been given under this section shall not be inquired into in any court."

It’s terrorism, not farmers/herders clashes By Emmanuel Onwubiko

Unwittingly, the current Nigerian presidency due to the naked backing of the activities of the Miyetti Cattle Owners Association, seems to be making phenomenal progress to market the false doctrine and propaganda that what is going on in the middle belt of Nigeria should be termed “farmers versus herdsmen’s crises.

This false narrative of a non-existent crises between rural farmers who are mostly land owners and the nomadic Fulani Cattle breeders has succeeded in winning the buy-in of no other person but the West African representative of the United Nations Secretary General, who is the erstwhile Secretary General of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) – Mohammed Ibn Chambas.

Before proceeding to expound the substantially false narrative which the United Nation’s envoy tries to Internationalize as a conflict between two distinct groups namely farmers and herders, let me point out that it is suspected that the media department of the current presidency in Abuja may have devoted huge amount of slush fund to sponsor propaganda materials in foreign and local media outlets to attempt to shift the focus of most readers from what really is the matter in the Christian dominated communities in Northern Nigeria. What is really going on is a planned genocide to try to take over greener pastures and lands belonging to these farmers who are at the receiving end of bloody attacks by well-armed Fulani herdsmen who have the support of top players in the security forces of present day Nigeria because the hierarchies of the National security architectures are drawn from one section of Nigeria namely the Hausa/Fulani Ethno-religious group. 

Now, lets turn to the falsehood peddled by the representative of the United Nations who is of a Ghanaian origin who is of the impression that there is a conflict between farmers and herders.

The United Nations envoy who spoke during a visit to the Middle Belt region asserted that what he considers as herders – farmers violence in Northern Nigeria constituted a major food security threat.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ special representative for West Africa and the Sahel, Mohamed Ibn Chambas, said there had been an increase in clashes region wide.

He said in a speech that a resource conflict was being aggravated by rapid population growth, climate change, poor implementation of legislation and the availability of weapons.

Wider criminality was further exacerbating tensions, he asserted.

“Farmers-herders conflict is the new sub-regional security threat,” he said.

“Urgent action is needed to resolve conflict in countries currently experiencing high levels of violence between herders and farmers,” he added.

“Sustained conflict prevention efforts are needed to stop violence from taking root and the state needs to be actively involved, working with local communities.”

This deliberately cooked up narrative of a straight conflict between farmers and herders gained currency when the media advisors to President Muhammadu Buhari tried to force it down our throats that what is at play is simply a conflict for grazing rights.

The Special Adviser, media to President Buhari even went to the ridiculous stage of asking Nigerian land owners to accept the fact that only the living can lay claim to ancestral ownership of land. Then again, the federal Minister of Agriculture and that of Defence also asserted that what is going on is simply a conflict between herders and farmers. 

The Minister of Defence who is Fulani by origin was even quoted as blaming state governments in the affected areas of armed Fulani attacks as the cause of the crises because of the newly introduced anti-open grazing laws.

The Minister of Interior who is also a Fulani simply dismissed this bloody insurgency of armed Fulani herdsmen as a law and order matter which can be tackled by the police. He made this comical statement over two years ago but between then and now, over 4,000 farmers have been slaughtered by the rampaging armed Fulani herders and dramatically not one killer is behind bars.

This writer is convinced that this deliberate attempt by government officials to play diversionary roles to explain away the apparent compromise of the National Security heads who have so far failed to stop the mass killings and arrest, prosecute and punish the mass killers, can simply be viewed as a grave threat to constitutional democracy.

In a new book titled “How democracies die: what history reveals about our future,” authored by Professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, our attention was drawn to the fact that whenever a set of people in government begin to carry out ethno-religious agenda such as encouraging the armed Fulani insurgency, it beloves on all patriots to work to check this treason because that tendency has the capacity to cripple constitutional democracy.

A careful reading of chapter 9 of this profoundly rich book by these two American Scholars will also tell us that all that it takes for constitutional democracy to die, is for patriots both within and outside the confines of government to do nothing and allow 'infidels' or haters of democracy to scuttle fundamental freedoms of peace loving citizens.

The book therefore asks patriots who are faithfully devoted to salvage democracy to act decisively.

Hear them: “Writing this book has reminded us that American democracy is not as exceptional as we sometimes believe". 

The authors rationalize that even in the United States of America, "there’s nothing in our Constitution or our culture to immunize us against democratic breakdown. We have experienced political catastrophe before, when regional and partisan enmities so divided the nation that it collapsed into civil war". 

"Our constitutional system recovered, and Republican and Democratic leaders developed new norms and practices that would undergird more than a century of political stability. But that stability came at the price of racial exclusion and authoritarian single-party rule in the South. It was only after 1965 that the United States fully democratized."

The Writers captivated their audience by reminding us that; "paradoxically, that very process (expounded above) began a fundamental realignment of the American electorate that has once again left our parties deeply polarized. This polarization, deeper than at any time since the end of Reconstruction, has triggered the epidemic of norm breaking that now challenges our democracy.”

However, in Nigeria, there is a sharp decline in the number of genuine patriots who can look at those wielding political powers and speak truth to power especially on this raging falsehood being officially peddled about the so-called farmers – herders clashes.

For instance, in today’s publication, the central Bank of Nigeria embraced and has dished out this propaganda so as to try to infuse some kind of official toga on an entirely fabricated claim.

It's been reported that the Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of Nigeria on Tuesday called on the Federal Government to address the crisis between farmers and herders, warning that if left unchecked, it would exert inflationary pressure on the economy.

The committee expressed this concern in a communiqué issued at the end of its two-day meeting held at the headquarters of the CBN in Abuja.

Announcing the decisions of the committee, the CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, said the MPC urged the government to arrest the clashes between the farmers and herders so as to sustain the moderation in food inflation.

He stated, “The committee took note of the sustained moderation in inflation pressure, especially the headline inflation as well as stability in the foreign exchange market, but expressed concern over the threat posed by incessant herders and farmers’ crises in some key food producing states and the negative impact on some key food supply chains, which would continue to exact pressure on food prices.

“The committee therefore called on the bank to continue to build on the progress already made in arresting the trend to sustain the moderation in food inflation.”

Well, this writer has set out in this piece to call a spade by its real name by emphatically saying that it is a lie from the pits of hell for anyone to try to deceive Nigerians by affirming the existence of a non-existent conflict between farmers and herders. 

What is going on is simply profoundly coordinated genocide by armed Fulani herdsmen and their sponsors who ought to be classified as terrorists but who are now enjoying government patronage and support. The outgoing French Ambassador to Nigeria had also blamed armed Fulani herdsmen and the lack of effective law enforcement for the spiralling violence targeting rural farmers.

If I may ask those going about spreading this rumour of some kind of war between herdsmen and farmers, how many Fulani herdsmen and their family members are part of the growing casualty figures and how many Fulani people are quartered at the internally displaced persons camps in the middle belt region?

My reading of the concept of a just war theory in moral philosophy tells me that the massacre of farmers and the destruction of their means of livelihood as have happened in the North Central region of Nigeria and masterminded by armed Fulani herdsmen is an unjust war going on.

Ryan Jenkins wrote that: “Traditional just war theory concerns itself with two questions: (1) when it is just to go to war and (2) how may a war be justly fought? (These two areas usually go by their Latin names: jus ad bellum and jus in bello, respectively.) This way, we can say that a war was just to declare but fought unjustly, or perhaps vice versa.”

“When is it just to resort to war? (Notice this moral question is separate from when war is prudent or popular.) Traditionalists hold that a state must satisfy several criteria: just cause, right intention, last resort, proportionality, probability of success, and proper authority.”

“Theorists usually think the only just cause for declaring war is self-defense: that is, as a response to an actual aggression. Pre-emptive war—declaring war on a state because it is believed they will be a threat—is clearly a Pandora’s box. Instead, we must meet a high evidential burden in order to justify war, and a merely suspected attack is not enough.”

“In order for a declaration of war to be just, the state must have the right intention in persecuting a war. It is unjust to go to war ostensibly in self-defense if one’s real motive is to seize the adversary’s copious natural resources.”

“Because war is a grave evil, it is just only when all other peaceful avenues to resolving the conflict have been exhausted.”

If there are crises between farmers and herders, how come then that the majority of those who die are from the communities under attack and those who usually find succour in the Internally displaced person's camps in Plateau State; Benue State and southern Kaduna are rural farmers? 

The laissez faire tendencies of the current government towards this widening spectre of terror attacks by armed Fulani herdsmen targeting farmers, is a reminder of what in social engineering is believed to be as a result of the growing preponderance of the 'I-it relationships in modern societies which remain major threats to the survival of humanity and indeed any nation whereby the government officials promote a policy that view certain sections of the polity as mere objects and the other favoured group as special breed. Martin Buber warned against the "Thingification" of people- the depersonalization of relationships that corroded our quality of life and the human spirit itself. 

What the current government has done by treating Fulani herdsmen as special breed of citizens who even deserved to be created some business colonies as payoff for their treacherous acts of mass killings of farmers, is simply to endanger our constitutional democracy. 

In the book 'The Substance of Politics' by A. Appodorai, the substance of the functions of the workers of executive powers in a constitutional democracy is "seeing that laws are enforced."

Our peculiar scenario is worst because the executive arm of government is busy dishing out false narratives on the causes of the terrorism waged by armed Fulani herdsmen. So long as this government refuses to bring mass killers to justice and declare armed Fulani herdsmen as terrorists, so long as these mass killings will become even more disturbing. We need to put an end to this propaganda and false narrative about any kind of conflicts between farmers and herders. The farmers are simply terrorized and killed so armed Fulani herdsmen can graze their cows and because the government officials pay more premium and more respect to cows than to the sanctity of life, the thousands of innocent lives wasted means nothing to them. We must put an end to this odd way of governance and embrace law-based good governance. 

*Emmanuel Onwubiko heads the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) and blogs @ www.emmanuelonwubiko.com; www.huriwanigeria.com; www.huriwa@blogspot.com.  

HURIWA to Buhari -: Stop police; EFCC; DSS from destroying democracy: *HURIWA backs freedom of association:

Condemning as unconstitutional and an attempt to force regime change in the National Assembly, a leading pro-democracy group – HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has cautioned President Muhammadu Buhari to desist from illegal deployment of armed security forces to scuttle legislative independence.

Reacting against the backdrop of the reported invasions of the private residences of Senate President Dr. Bukola Saraki by armed police operatives and the deputy senate president Professor Ike Ekweremadu by combined teams of DSS, police and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), HURIWA urged the President to endeavor to act as a statesman so generations yet unborn will not know him for evil.

Reminding the President that he is obliged by his oath of office to bear true allegiance to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, HURIWA affirmed that it was illegal to deploy armed security forces to physically restrain principal officers of an arm of government from accessing their offices with a sinister plot to instigate internal rebellion leading to possible regime change in the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

It cited copiously from the Constitution to affirm that it was unconstitutional to use the force of arm and coercion to stop Senate leaders from enjoying their constitutional freedoms as enshrined in the relevant sections as follows: Section 35 (1), 36 (1)and 40 stated thus: 35 (1) “Every person shall be entitled to his personal liberty and no person shall be deprived of such liberty save in the following cases and in accordance with a procedure permitted by law – in execution of the sentence or order of a court in respect of a criminal offence of which he has been found guilty; by reason of his failure to comply with the order of a court or in order to secure the fulfillment of any obligation imposed upon him by law; for the purpose of bringing him before a court in execution of the order of a court or upon reasonable suspicion of his having committed a criminal offence, or to such extent as may be reasonably necessary to prevent his committing a criminal offence. 36 (1) “In the determination of his civil rights and obligations, including any question or determination by or against any government or authority, a person shall be entitled to a fair hearing within a reasonable time by a court or other tribunal established by law and constituted in such manner as to secure its independence and impartiality. 40 “Every person shall be entitled to assemble freely and associate with other persons, and in particular he may form or belong to any political party, trade union or any other association for the protection of this interests.”

“We view the illegal manipulations of all arms of the security forces including the anti-graft body by the presidency against the current hierarchy of the National Assembly to achieve pre-determined political objective of change of leadership by unconstitutional means as a major and indeed a fundamental threat to constitutional democracy.”

“The ignominious role of the current Inspector General of police Alhaji Ibrahim Kpodum Idriss to slavishly use his armed operatives to harass, intimidate and attempt to rope in the person of the Senate President into the Offa Bank robbery as very disingenuous, despicable and reprehensible. We call on the international community and world leaders to call President Muhammadu Buhari to order in other that he will not let his over ambition to return for a second term make him to manipulate security forces  to crumble the democracy that we all fought very hard to institutionalize.”

HURIWA in the statement by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director Miss Zainab Yusuf urged the senators and Nigerians to defend democracy and prevent the executive arm of government from destabilizing the National Assembly.

“May we inform the Senators and Nigerians that the constitutionally guaranteed principle of separation of powers as unambiguously provided for in sections 4, 5 and 6 of the Nigerian constitution is the beauty of democracy and the moment this independence of both the legislature and judiciary is emasculated and muzzled by the executive arm of government, that illegality will signal the demise of democracy.”

HURIWA cited the oath of office of the president to remind the president that he is constitutionally obliged not to deploy armed security forces to carry out illegal assignments of a politically tainted nature such as the arbitrary arrest of principal leaders of the legislature without adherence to the Principle of rule of law just as it stated that even with the plot to rope in National Assembly officers into some phantom crimes will not stand the test of time.

HURIWA asked President to recall that he swore an oath binding on him to “Be faithful and bear true allegiance to the Federal Republic of Nigeria; that as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, I will discharge my duties to the best of my ability, faithfully and in accordance with the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the law, and always in the interest of the sovereignty, integrity, solidarity, wellbeing and prosperity of the Federal Republic of Nigeria; that I will strive to preserve the fundamental objectives and directive principles of state policy contained in the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria; that I will not allow my personal interest to influence my official conduct or my official decisions; that I will to the best of my ability preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

Dasuki bail: HURIWA asks CJN to call for strike:

As a practical way of defending the integrity of the judicial institution and to safeguard the sanctity of the Nigerian constitution which spells out the binding doctrine of separation of powers, the chief justice of Nigeria Walter Nkanu Onoghen (GCON) has been charged to defend the constitution against presidential impunity.

Making the plea is the prominent pro-democracy and non-governmental body – HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) which specifically asked the Chief Justice of Nigeria to call out all the court systems in Nigeria to a week-long warning strike to protest against serial disobedience of president Muhammadu Buhari to a litany of binding Federal High Court bail orders with specific reference to the prolonged detention of erstwhile National Security Adviser Colonel Sambo Dasuki and the leader of the Islamic movement of Nigeria Sheikh Ibrahim El Zackzacky.

In the considered opinion of the Rights group, the brazen disobedience of several bail orders in these two specific matters and the fact that several Nigerians are detained indefinitely without trial amounts not just to executive lawlessness but are direct affronts to the judicial powers of the federation which in section 6 are domiciled with the nation’s court system. The Rights said it makes no sense that the Courts are working as if all is well when the international community are already aware that there are several breaches of judgments of the nation's court system which graphically depicts Nigeria as a banana republic. HURIWA said it is imperative that an industrial strike is organized by the hierarchy of the Court system to show the World that there are officers of the law who still care to defend the integrity of the constitution irrespective of physical threats from the misbehaving Presidency that takes delight in abusing the executive powers over security forces. HURIWA reminded the hierarchies of the Court systems that if there were no patriotic pre-independence leaders like Sir Ahmadu Bello, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe and Sir Obafemi Awolowo who fought the colonial masters with all their talents and personal powers of influence, Nigeria could still have remained a conquered territory of the neocolonialists.

Besides, HURIWA in the media statement endorsed jointly by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director Miss Zainab Yusuf, argued that declaration of a warning industrial action by the heads of the nation’s judicial systems is the legitimate way of forcing a persistently disobedient and lawless dictator from changing from persistent impunity and lawlessness and abide by constitutional precepts.

“With regards to the flouting of many binding court bail orders, we are of the considered position that it will be ill -advised for the court systems to feign ignorance of the gravity of the threat to its integrity and the constitutional foundation of judicial independence that such misbehaviours pose to constitutional democracy. We think that since the executive arm of government has muzzled the legislative arm into panic withdrawal from her constitutionally guaranteed power of impeachment, the judicial system should adopt a law based approach to forcing the executive to respect the constitution since it lacks the powers to deploy the police to compel compliance with binding judgments of competent courts of law recognized under section 6 of the Nigerian Constitution of 1999 (as amended).”

HURIWA has also asked the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA)  to wake up from slumber and withdraw the practicing licence from the Federal Attorney General and Minister of Justice Mr. Abubakar Malami for his naked support of legal rascality and open affront to the principle of rule of law. On the alternative, HURIWA has charged progressive lawyers to team up and form a more credible national platform of democratic lawyers to serve as the defenders of the Nigerian Constitution in this kind of despotic instance whereby the President has failed and openly declared his disrespect for the Court system which is a clear impeachable offence in civilized climes.

“We regret to say that this is the worst kind of leadership of the Nigerian Bar Association in history that the Minister of Justice will openly disobey the constitution and vow to disrespect the constitutional principle of separation of powers and the Nigerian Bar Association is behaving like a deaf, dumb and blind contraption.”

“We affirm that the public statement by Mr. Malami that the government will not respect the constitutional powers of the court system in granting bail without conditions to erstwhile National Security Adviser Colonel Sambo Dasuki amounts to the institutionalization of roguery in government because what it implies is that the executive arm of government has stolen the constitutional powers donated to the courts in Nigeria in line with section 6. The Attorney General has effectively abused section 150 (1) of the constitution of 1999 (as amended) which specifies that the Attorney General shall be the chief law officer of the federation. Abubakar Malami has divested himself of that function and has put on a new clothe as the Chief law breaker of Nigeria.”

HURIWA recalled that the attorney-general of the federation, Abubakar Malami, said the federal government cannot release Dasuki, because the allegation against him is a matter of public interest which has cost several lost of lives.

HURIWA further recalled that the Federal High Court, Abuja, had on July 2, 2018, granted bail to the former National Security Adviser but the Nigerian government is yet to obey the court order.

But HURIWA lamented that the current holder of office of AGF shamelessly admitted that the executive arm of government has become a law unto itself when he asserted wrongfully that "If the dispute is about an issue that affects an entire country, then you have to remember that government is about the people and not for only an individual,” Malami told Voice of America’s Hausa Service.

HURIWA condemned as atrocious and an attempt at coup plot for the justice minister to have uttered such illegal words thus: “You have to look at it from this perspective. If the issue about an individual coincides with that, which affects the people of a country and you are now saying the government did not obey a court order that infringes on a single person’s rights.”

HURIWA said it is incumbent that the heads of the Court system should adopt lawful steps such as declaration of a warning strike to compel the President to obey the Courts and if he maintains the position then the Courts should declare an indefinite strike action which must be backed up by all lovers of constitutional democracy and the international community to restore normalcy in Nigeria.

Vote buying in Ekiti shows INEC’s Incapacity to conduct 2019 polls: *Accuses INEC of failure to issue PVCS:

A pro-democracy and Non-governmental organization – HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has called for the annulment of the Saturday July 14^th 2018 governorship poll in Ekiti state because of overwhelming evidence of monetary inducements and the failure of the electoral panel to stop same.

Also, the Rights group has warned that if the current incompetent and compromised hierarchy of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) professor Yakubu Mohmood and the heavily compromised security chiefs are left intact to oversee the 2019 general election then the national security of the nation maybe imperiled even as vote buying may spark off wide spread riots.

 “The legitimacy of the Ekiti governorship election is vitiated by widespread irregularities characterized by open vote buying by political parties with the highest bidder getting the highest number of choreographed votes. The conduct of the electoral panel and the security forces during the election can at best be described as treasonous and vexatious. We encouraged the candidate of the PDP who was robbed in a daylight robbery to proceed to the election tribunal immediately and we advised the judiciary to decide this matter in the best interest of justice and avoid being compromised or bribed".

“We are embittered that even when there are overwhelming evidences of votes buying by politicians especially by the party affiliated to the central government which reportedly got security backups to perpetrate these illegalities and electoral malfeasance, INEC still proceeded to even doctor the overall results of the election just to ensure that a pre-determined and federally anointed candidate of the All Progressives Congress is produced as winner. The open and naked show of shame continued with the primitive display of arrogance by the presidency and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, which specifically celebrated this infamy done to Ekiti voters by INEC by announcing on its tweeter handle that governor Ayodele Fayose who is a vocal critique of President Buhari would be dealt with over some allegations that in the face of the law are still mere conjectures until a competent court of law reaches a determination. The barrage of celebratory attacks emerging from the presidency, shows that the Ekiti State governorship election was traded off by INEC and procured by the presidency.”

In a statement to the media endorsed jointly by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director Miss Zainab Yusuf, HURIWA warned that the current hierarchies of INEC and security agencies if not changed immediately, will push the nation into a state of war should the Ekiti example of seeing and buying of votes as done by All Progressives Congress be replicated across Nigeria.

“We are worried that mob justice may become legitimate, should politicians try to play on the gullibility and government’s imposed poverty, to try to buy votes.This evil tendency would be resisted and we fear that this may precipitate a greater national security instability. INEC chairman must be sacked even as all the heads of security must be swiftly changed to bring in patriots and committed unbiased Nigerians to head these agencies."

HURIWA also accused INEC of failing to issue Permanent voters cards to millions of Nigerians who registered in the exercise that has just been abruptly stopped by INEC. 

Where politics disunites, football unites By Emmanuel Onwubiko

“In praise of football” would have been the most appropriate heading of this reflection.
However, the realization of the global symbolism of today’s meeting in Helsinki, Finland of two great world leaders of Russia and the United States of America, compelled a deeper introspection of the thematic area.

There are obviously four dominant issues that would play out in any conversation between the World powers from the East and West and these issues revolve around such phenomenal nations of China, Britain in addition to the duo of Russia and the United States of America.

Whereas the United States under the current political formation headed by the Republican Donald Trump, is at war with China on issues of trades, the British and Russian political divides are torn apart by the diplomatic warfare that escalated with the recent poisoning of the double agent and his daughter somewhere inside of the united kingdom.

A logical fall out from that initial hullabaloo over the suspected Russian poisoning gambit inside of U.K is that someone has actually died from the poisoning.

Infact the media in the USA has linked the spies from Russia with both the poisoning incident in Britain and the attempted hacking into the campaign data of the democrats in the USA during the last election. It would be recalled that Hilary Clinton and her campaign team have been up in arms against the current President of USA over suspected infiltration of the Russians through cybercrime during the campaigns that heralded the election.

Many top appointees of Donald Trump have fallen by the way side as a result of an independent probe of this Russian nexus in the election that took place that brought in the current political family that run the White House.

So, the twists and turns in all of these controversies about the Russians have become expanded to involve an incident that happened in the United Kingdom in which the spies affiliated to President Vladimir Putin are the suspects.

This interesting nexus constituted the kernel of the news report done by the New York Times recently (exactly on July 15^th 2018).

According to New york Times, the same Russian military intelligence service now accused of disrupting the 2016 presidential election in America may also be responsible for the nerve agent attack in Britain against a former Russian spy — an audacious poisoning that led to a geopolitical confrontation this spring between Moscow and the West.

The newspaper reported that the British investigators believe the March 4th attack on the former spy, Sergei V. Skripal, and his daughter, Yulia, was most probably carried out by current or former agents of the service, known as the G.R.U., who were sent to his home in southern England, according to one British official, one American official and one former American official familiar with the inquiry, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence.

New York Times reports that British officials are now closing in on identifying the individuals they believe carried out the operation, said the former American official. At the same time, investigators have not ruled out the possibility that another Russian intelligence agency, or a privatized spinoff, could be responsible.

Recall that President Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia are to hold a much-scrutinized meeting on Monday July 16th 2018 in Helsinki, Finland.

New York Times reported  that for months, Mr. Trump has angrily belittled the special counsel investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.  Trump has also blamed those media houses he erroneously categorized as purveyors of the so-called fake news for spreading falsehoods against him.

Then again the New York Times- a newspaper known for being hyper critical of the Trump's administration and his style had recalled with relish that on Friday last Weekend, the Justice Department announced a bombshell indictment of 12 G.R.U. officers in the hacking of internal communications of the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton presidential campaign.
However, so far Trump hasn't directly been linked as a beneficiary of the spy job carried out by Russia in the wake of the heated campaigns in the year 2016 Presidential election in the World's strongest democracy.

Ironically, the diplomatic verbal warfare between Britain and Russia escalated only few days to the commencement of the just ended world cup which was hosted by Russia. Understandably, football may have mediated a softer approach at using diplomacy to resolve hot political discord.

In the wake of the poisoning incident in Britain, the British government successfully lobbied the European Union and the United States on the need to take steps to sanction Russia for committing what is now regarded by Theresa May of Britain as an act of aggression by Russia against the United Kingdom.

Several nations in the European Union were sympathetic to the British view point and followed this sympathy with numerous diplomatic expulsions. Donald Trump shocked his pessimistic critics when his administration sacked 60 Russian spies away from USA over the poisoning case in Great Britain.
Also, Britain ruled out any top level participation at the World cup in Russia by her politicians as a way of remonstrating and protesting with and against Vladimir Putin over the alleged indiscretion of attacking persons within the borders of the U.K. by security forces embedded in Russia.

At a point before the world cup in Russia, the media went to town with stories of possible security threats during the World cup.

Yours faithfully was in the United Kingdom for a two-weeks holiday just before the World cup and so I followed up the media reportage of these fears and apprehensions that if Russia can export poisonous chemicals to hunt down political opponents of the powerful Russian leader it therefore follows that football fans are not safe in Russia during the mundial.

There were existential fears that some nations that qualified to participate in the soccer fiesta in Russia would withdraw but as hours turned to days, it became clear that no team will risk the sanction by FIFA to play political gambling with football which is generally viewed as being higher in value than mere mundane politics.

All the teams from the around the world that qualified indeed participated. Even top leaders of European politics whose national teams qualified participated including the just dethroned holders- Germany.

A full list of qualifiers for the 21st FIFA World Cup can be found below:
UEFA (EUROPE) Qualified: Russia (host), Belgium, Germany, England, Spain, Poland, Iceland, Serbia, France, Portugal, Switzerland, Croatia, Sweden, Denmark. Among the Eliminated: Czech Republic, Norway, Israel, Hungary, Turkey, Ukraine, Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Ireland; AFC (ASIA) Qualified: Iran, South Korea, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Australia. Among the Eliminated: Uzbekistan, China, United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Thailand, Qatar, Syria; CAF (AFRICA) Qualified: Nigeria, Egypt, Senegal, Tunisia, Morocco. Among the Eliminated: Cameroon, Algeria, Guinea, Libya, Congo, Zambia, Uganda, Ghana, South Africa; CONCACAF (NORTH AMERICA) Qualified: Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama. Among the Eliminated: United States, Canada, Honduras, El Salvador, Trinidad & Tobago, Haiti, Jamaica, Guatemala; CONMEBOL (SOUTH AMERICA) Qualified: Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Colombia, Peru. Among the Eliminated: Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Chile, Paraguay.

At the end of this year’s mundial, the general opinions of most observers is that the Russians delivered to the World one of the best World Cup tournaments in history.

President Vladimir Putin, the strong man of Russian politics, has invariably scored a major diplomatic goal by staging one of the most hospitable soccer fiestas of modern times.
Even stranded fans from Nigeria are been airlifted courtesy of a Russian Non-governmental organization. This is contrary To the claims just before the kickoff of the tournament that Russians are xenophobic.

To underscore the feat attained by staging the event, Russian football has dramatically gained global reputation  because of the fantastic standards of participation the players displayed which saw them crossing to quarter finals mileage which even football giants like Germany and Argentina couldn't attain. All African footballing nations that qualified lost our at the preliminary even when a largely black dominated French team eventually won the cup against the highly motivated and cared Croatia.

In addition to the phenomenal performance of Russian soccer team, Mr. Gianni Infantino, the president of federation of international football (FIFA) was full of praises for Russia.
Speaking at FIFA’s closing press conference of the four-week cup, the FIFA president said: “For a couple of years, I was saying this would be the best world cup ever, today I can say it with more conviction because I lived it and you lived it. It is the best World Cup ever.”

Also, British fans who had expressed anxieties over security concerns regarding the World cup started trooping into watch the competition when news reached them that contrary to the insinuations in the political firmaments of Britain that there could be security concerns, the World Cup in Russia went on for four weeks without a single violence.

Football has indeed successfully deflated the atmospheres of fears and tensions that were generated by the alleged indiscretion of the Russian security to embark on the deadly assignment of poisoning a big enemy of the Russian leader who has in any event denied involvement.
But the fall out has also denied the owner of Chelsea FC of his right of residency because of his friendship with Putin. British home office failed to renew the 5 -year residency of the Russian Oligarch who owns Chelsea FC of England and has considerable huge assets inside of Great Britain.
But today, President Putin has put on a smiling face of a great football organizer even as he stepped into a hotly expected meeting with the American President.

The fact that the World Cup was a big success and the physical presence of the French leader Mr. Emmanuel Macron at the finals of the mundial which his country France won, has also added more distinguished medals of diplomatic honour for the Russian leader who would meet the united states leader over several global issues including international security, climate change and certainly the British angle on the Russian connection to the poisoning in Britain would certainly come up.
Incidentally, China which has an ongoing trade war with Trump’s administration did not qualify for the just ended World cup but statistically, Chinese turned up in great numbers to watch most of the matches in Russia.

It is educative to let us know that the Chinese league is rich and attractive to many talented footballers. Some of the top players of the Nigerian National team are plying their trades in the Chinese league.

It would however seem that the logical consequences of the successes recorded at the Russian hosted World cup has started to emerge with Donald Trump firing the first welcoming salvo for Putin.
Mr. Trump took to twitter to lay the blame for the rocky relationship with Russia not with Moscow, but with Washington. (www.news.com.au).

“Our relationship with Russia has NEVER been worse thanks to many years of United States' foolishness and stupidity and now the Rigged Witch Hunt,” he said referring to US special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s probe into alleged Russian meddling into US elections.

In another tweet he said he was looking forward to meeting Mr. Putin and complained he would not get enough credit if the summit was a success.

“Unfortunately, no matter how well I do at the Summit, if I was given the great city of Moscow as retribution for all the sins and evils committed by Russia over the years I would return to criticism that it wasn’t good enough,” he said.

A notable non-qualifier to the mundial in Russia is the USA and it would have been interesting if the national team of the United States of America had participated to glamourize the ongoing global conversations by Britain, Russia and the USA.

Had an unlikely scenario of USA or England reaching the finals against Russia happened in Russia 2018, perhaps the World would have seen President Trump participating live in Russia or Theresa May attending to cheer on their respective teams irrespective of the ongoing political war fare between and amongst them.

Closer home, this writer wishes to ask the incompetent persons running the nation’s sports ministry to leave the Nigerian football federation alone to save Nigeria from the imminent hammer from FIFA.
A way out is for President Buhari to name Mr. Chris Giwa as the minister of state (youth development) so he could be politically settled to remove his over ambitious eyes from the glass house so FIFA does not suspend us from participating in football which is the only uniting phenomenon left in our tattered; politically distorted and disunited Nigeria.

This footballing task is urgent and please can someone with the influence within the unelected cabal running AsoRock should lobby them to compel Muhammadu Buhari to save our football.

*Emmanuel Onwubiko; Heads Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) and blogs @ www.huriwanigeria.com; www. emmanuelonwubiko.com; www.hurwa@blogspot.com

Ekiti: Police deconstructs Buhari By Emmanuel Onwubiko

For over three decades, this writer has devoted a greater chunk of time to research on the fuller import of the development concept of third world.

For me, what convinced me that Nigeria indeed belongs to this never-do-well categorization of nations of third world is not just because of infrastructural deficits or the backlogs of accumulated but dubious foreign debts which successive and current governments have continued to pile up.
Before delving into the germane issue that would stand out as a clear evidence of how uncivilized Nigeria is, let us look at what in broad terms the word Third World means.

Defined by language and history experts as a collective name for most of the nations of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, many of which share a colonial past and are variously termed as developing, less developed, or least developed countries.

They (third World nations) are said by experts to support 75 percent of the world's population but consume only 20 percent of its resources, and are generally characterized by (1) slow pace of industrialization, (2) low to very low levels of per capita income that is insufficient to generate savings for economic growth, (3) low literacy levels but high rate of population growth, (4) poor health facilities and transport infrastructure, (5) dependence on agricultural and commodity exports as main foreign exchange earners.

Etymologically, the concept was coined in the 1950s by the French writer Alfred Sauvy (as 'le tiers monde'), it was originally used in the Cold War era (1945-89) to distinguish non-aligned nations from the Western capitalist economies aligned with the US (the First World) and the Eastern communist economies aligned with the USSR (the Second World).

Shockingly, African rulers have worked to undermine the economic and socio-political advancement of their nation states so as to fast track the emergence of their nations as developed nations even when the cold war ended nearly half a century ago or so. Nigeria is particularly a cesspool of political corruption.

By commission or omission, these poor political rulers lacking vision, ingenuity, goals and positive aspirations for the collectives, have rather worked to ensure that their nations remain deeper as members of the Third World.
Political office holders in Africa have often manipulated the armed forces of their nation states to self-perpetuate in their offices that are administered with no regard to transparency and accountability.

So how did it occur to me that indeed the textbook's description of Nigeria as a Third World nation was existentially and substantially accurate?

Long before I became a long distance flyer to far flung continents outside of Nigeria/Africa, the clearest indication of how backward we are as a nation and therefore merits the inglorious and notorious membership of the third world nation is the modus operandi and modus vivendi or indeed what is called ‘Weltanschauung’ or world view of the Nigeria police as an institution that harbours the lawless, professionally incompetent and grossly indisciplined persons.

Growing up in the 80’s in the rusty town of Kafanchan near a bustling police barrack with many childhood friends whose parents were police operatives, afforded me the earliest encounters with the pathetic state of the Nigeria police force vis-à-vis the gross misconduct and crass indiscipline of the operatives.

Apart from knowing that police operatives in Nigeria believes and practice torture as a technique of criminal investigation, I also came in contact with the sordid reality that the police enjoyed the past time of engaging in the extra-legal execution of detainees in their decrepit detention facilities.
Many years after leaving Kafanchan, I have had no reason to believe otherwise that the Nigeria police remains one of the vestiges that mark us out as still belonging to the third world categorization of nations.

Two recent events, perhaps, justifies this conclusion.
Few days back, the media reported live the public protest by armed mobile police operatives in the terrorism afflicted Maiduguri city in Borno state in the North East of Nigeria.
Reason for this unusual protest by armed police was given as the prolonged delay in paying them their salaries for some months or so.

Commuters who were heading away from Maiduguri to other parts of Nigeria had had to scamper for safety because these protesting police operatives shot sporadically in the air to demonstrate and ventilate their angst at the undue delay by the police top hierarch to pay them their entitlements.

But in Abuja, the spokesperson of the police headed to a television studio to deny that the police ever protested even when the video evidence were visibly carried in the mainstream and new media.
This brazen falsehood spewed out by the spokesman of the Nigeria police force with the permission of one of Nigeria’s most controversial and incompetent police boss, shows that Nigeria is deeply a third world country because it is only in such a nation with poverty of ethical codes of discipline, can you find a police authority lying from both sides of their mouths with no shame whatsoever.

Another case to show that Nigeria police is where to look at if you want to know whether Nigeria is still a third world nation, was the unprovoked violence unleashed by the police targeting members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who had gathered in Ado Ekiti, in Ekiti State few hours to the governorship election scheduled for this Saturday to stage a peaceful campaign walk which is absolutely lawful since election campaign is allowed in that state.

During the police instigated show of shame, the state governor and his deputy Ayo Fayose, and Professor Kolapo Olusola who is the candidate for the PDP, were both injured with the governor sustaining serious injury to his neck.

However, in Abuja, the police denied that their men ever attacked the PDP rally but the police officer who is on ground in Ekiti state was quoted in the media to have admitted that indeed the Ekiti abomination happened and pledged never to allow a repeat.

The man in question is the Deputy Inspector-General of Police (Operations), Habilal Joshak who however denied that he ordered his officers to use teargas on the crowd at the rally of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Media reports showed that security agents took over the premises and allegedly fired teargas at Governor Ayodele Fayose.
The teargas allegedly left Fayose unconscious for about five minutes, before he was resuscitated by party supporters and taken to the Government House Clinic.
But Joshak has denied instructing his officers to use such force and promised “such mistake will never repeat itself”.

“What I said was that those massing for the rally should be asked to leave because it is not good going by the mood of the state now to hold rally or street procession.

“I didn’t say they should use force. This is an election and electioneering is a civil matter anywhere across the globe, so police as security agents can’t use force on the people. But I want to assure the good people of Ekiti State that such mistake will never repeat itself,” Joshak stated.

Following uproar that this unruly conduct of the armed Police generated from all over the World, the Police then stated that they have already dismantled the barricades they mounted at the entrance to the Ekiti State Government House in Ado-Ekiti.

Apart from demonstrating that Nigeria is a Third World nation, these tendencies described above displayed by the Police has seriously presented the current President as a fascist or a dictator who does not tolerate multiparty democracy.

The impression showed by the photographs that were published in the media about the Ekiti abomination by police has fundamentally demarketed President Muhammadu Buhari who is facing a political communication nightmare as a political leader who has not kept to his campaign promises.
So in Political communication, what the Police did by executing that show of shame is to remove any lingering doubts that Nigeria has entered a grave dictatorship and that next year's election would be marred by police instigated violence.

Let's read what some experts on political communication  would interpret the Police show of shame in Ekiti to mean especially as it pertains to the impression the President had created as someone who is no longer behaving like the military dictator of his days of military regime about 30 years back.
“Yet politics, like courtship, requires a degree of ‘mystification’. We all want to present ourselves as we want to be seen, maybe as we want to become, rather than as we are. The audience – to our courtship ‘moves’ and to the tactics and strategies of politicians – wants to be mystified".

Reobert Brustein suggests that the public insists on thinking that ‘certain specially endowed individuals can heal our disorders, realize our dreams, and solve our problems’. Yet, television precludes that mystery for politicians, as the unblinking camera lens intrudes into all aspects of their lives.

Still on the demystification of so called political statesman in the person of the President, Television or indeed the media, according to Columbia history professor Henry F. Fraff, ‘robs statesmen of the distance between themselves and the people that heads of government have historically required and savored and for which they have not yet found a substitute’.

As Meyrowitz concludes, ‘in the new communication environment the political actor faces a disquieting paradox: to audition for the role of traditional hero is to end up playing the fool’.
"Indeed, who but fools would attempt to put themselves forward as logical candidates in a media environment in which, as the president of the CBS Broadcast Group, Howard Stringer, has put it, ‘we seem to want our leaders to be asexual, a typical and without intellectual or personal histories’, (From the book “Political Communication Rhetoric, Government, and Citizens” by Dan F. Hahn.)
On a much more serious level, the shows of shame by the hierarchy of the Nigeria Police force in the current dispensation have demonstrated clearly that constitutional democracy faces imminent threat of death.

Two distinguished professors of Government in one of the World's most respected Universities-Harvard may actually have had Nigeria under Muhammadu Buhari in mind whilst penning their award winning book titled HOW DEMOCRACIES DIE (What history reveals about our future) published this year.

They argued thus: “Although some elected demagogues take office with a blueprint for autocracy, many, such as Fujimor, do not. Democratic breakdown doesn’t need a blueprint. Rather, as Peru’s experience suggests, it can be the result of a sequence of unanticipated events – an escalating tit-for-tat between a demagogic, norm-breaking leader and a threatened political establishment."

They argued that the process often begins with words in such a way that demagogues attack their critics in harsh and provocative terms – as enemies, as subversives, and even as terrorists.
Citing examples from many parts of the World, these beautiful political essayists stated thus: "When he first ran for president, Hugo Chavez described his opponents as ‘rancid pigs’ and ‘squalid oligarchs’. As president, he called his critics ‘enemies’ and ‘traitors’; Fujimori linked his opponents to terrorism and drug trafficking; and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi attacked judges who ruled against him as ‘communist’.

"Journalists also become targets. Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa called the media a ‘grave political enemy’ that ‘has to be defeated’. Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused journalists of propagating ‘terrorism’. These attacks can be consequential: if the public comes to share the view that opponents are linked to terrorism and the media are spreading lies, it becomes easier to justify taking actions against them".

The assault rarely ends there, just as these great authors affirmed that though observers often assure us that demagogues are ‘all talk’ and that their words should not be taken too seriously, a look at demagogic leaders around the world suggests that many of them do eventually cross the line from words to action.
This transition according to them, is because a demagogue’s initial rise to power tends to polarize society, creating a climate of panic, hostility, and mutual distrust.

"The new leader’s threatening words often have a boomerang effect. If the media feels threated, it may abandon restraint and professional standards in a desperate effort to weaken the government. And the opposition may conclude that, for the good of the country, the government must be removed via extreme measures impeachment, mass protest, even a coup", (From the book “How Democracies Die, What History Reveals about Our Future” by Steven Levistsky & Daniel Ziblatt).

The Ekiti police debacle and the cacophonous press statements from the Presidency in Nigeria against political opposition and the deployment of security forces and EFCC against opponents, completely supports all the examples cited in the aforementioned book for any rational analyst to draw factually and verifiable conclusion that indeed constitutional democracy is imperiled in the current dispensation.

All democrats, real patriots must endeavour to stand up and face the emerging challenges and ensure that Nigeria does not become a nation ruled by a dictator.
We can make the difference through pure words and action by defeating fear.

The fear of the unknown if defeated will enable Nigerians to collectively set the agenda to systematically sustain the overall objectives of the enthronement of democratic institutions.

We must strive to ensure the sustenance of not just civil rule but constitutional democracy in such a way that we will erect strong institutions to support the sustenance of durable democracy rather than the current template of political players in which they are progressively building a strong person and a tyrant as the President as against the tenets of the Constitution.

*Emmanuel Onwubiko heads the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) and blogs@www.emmanuelonwubiko.com,www.huriwanigeria.com;www. huriwa.blogspot.com.

Sack certificate forgers from your govt: - HURIWA to Buhari

Worried that the silence of President Muhammadu Buhari to damaging allegations of academic certificates’ forgery amongst some of his top officials is an indication that Nigeria is becoming a country of fraudsters, President Buhari has been urged to purge his administration of such persons.

Besides, a pro-democracy and civil rights body – HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) which made the appeal, also stated that such tendencies to accommodate persons with questionable academic credentials will rubbish the national policy on education which is constitutionally enshrined (section 18 (1)) which emphasizes merit and honesty at all times.

Specifically, President Buhari has been tasked to relieve from their offices such persons like his senior Special Assistant on prosecution Mr. Obono Obla who has been clearly indicted of using fake West African Examination Certificate by the issuing authority which appeared before the Federal House of Representatives very recently.

HURIWA recalled that the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) on June 5^th 2018, described as “altered and invalid” the results and certificate it allegedly issued to the Chairman, Special Presidential Investigative Panel for the Recovery of Property, Mr. Okoi Obono-Obla.

HURIWA recalled that WAEC whilst testifying before the House of Representatives ad hoc Panel investigating Mr. Obono-Obla’s alleged forgery, WAEC Registrar, represented by the Deputy Registrar, Mr. Femi Ola, said available evidence indicated that the results were “altered” and thus “invalid.”“Considering the results, particularly on what is before me, I would say what I have brought here is the authentic and genuine one; his is not because it has been altered and such alteration renders it invalid,” Mr. Ola told the panel.

“From our record, the genuine candidate is Ofem Okoi Ofem, 09403/247 of Mary Knoll College, Ogoja. The exam number and number of subjects are the same. The difference is the grade in English literature in which he claimed to have scored C6 despite being marked absent in the true, certified copy,” he added.

HURIWA recalled that when asked by the National legislators  how he would qualify Obono-Obla’s results, the WAEC Registrar said it was “fake, not genuine.”

HURIWA recalled that the Chairman of the Reps Investigative Panel, Mr. Aliyu Pategi (APC, Kwara) lauded WAEC for striving to maintain its “integrity and probity.”

Quoting news reports, HURIWA stated that the House committee Chairman added that the implication was that Obono-Obla gained admission to the University of Jos with a fake WAEC result.
Also, HURIWA has asked president Buhari to sack with immediate effect the Finance Minister Mrs. Kemi Adeosun for making use of allegedly forged NYSC discharged certificate which amounted to a serious misdemeanor that should fetch her a criminal prosecution and jail if proven in the competent court of law.

“The current administration must desist from polluting the international image of Nigeria by toleration many persons of questionable academic credentials who are working in the federal government of Nigeria when there are millions of highly qualified Nigerians from diverse fields searching frantically for employments.”

“The silence of the current government to the cacophony of allegations of certificate forgery involving top rated government officials shows that the corporate image of the country is imperiled and if this silence and failure to act persists, then the rest of the world will see Nigeria as a country of certificate forgers.”

Corruption also includes such crime like forgery of academic credentials which runs contrary to section 15 (5) of the constitution which makes it obligatory that government must abolish all corrupt practices and abuse of power.

HURIWA disclosed that it has briefed some patriotic lawyers to head to court to secure the legal sanction of all the identified persons in government with fake certificates just as it has started drafting a bill to compel the forensic investigations of all the academic qualifications tendered by all federal government officials to weed off the holders of forged certificates and sanitize the federal government.

HURIWA reminded President Muhammadu Buhari that the Black’s law dictionary clearly identified certificate forgery as a grave criminal offence and as a specie of fraud even as the Rights group wondered why a government that makes heavy weather of its anti-corruption campaign is the same that accommodates top officials with highly questionable academic credentials. 

HURIWA told President Muhammadu Buhari thus: "Both the Criminal and Penal Codes that apply in the southern and northern parts of Nigeria prohibit forgery, citing Sections 463 of the Criminal Code which provides for three years imprisonment for forgery while sections 362 to 364 of the Penal Code deal with forgery with punishment of up to 14 years imprisonment with option of fine or both."

"It becomes life imprisonment if, amongst others, the thing forged purports to be a document which is evidence of title to public debt of Nigeria or a state, or of another country, or forges a document that  purports to be a debt of Nigeria, or signature of the president or governor of a state,”.

Also, both forgery and perjury are criminal offences, the Criminal Code views perjury as an offence whether made under judicial oath, that is a court proceeding or document or not, while under the Penal Code, perjury must be an evidence given under oath or under express provision of law compelling a person to state the truth.

Forgery and perjury are both criminal offences that goes to one’s integrity and credibility. "

"It vitiates the moral and legal trust that public service demands. It calls to question a person’s qualification and competency. And we must etch new paradigms in public services by proceeding in the Courts of Law against forgers and those who lie under oath.”

HURIWA condemns police siege of Ekiti government house:

 

A pro-democracy and non-governmental body – HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has condemned the reported siege by armed police operatives of the government house in Ekiti State and the reported attack of the governor and his deputy.

HURIWA has also condemned as unconstitutional the reported invasion of armed police operatives of the campaign office of the governorship candidate of Ekiti state Professor Olushola Kolapo and the disruption of the campaign rally of the People's Democratic Party.  The Rights has therefore expressed consternation that men and officers of the Niferia police force beginning from the Inspector General of Police Ibrahim Kpodum Idriss have become members of the armed wing of the All Progressives Congress.

Besides, HURIWA has cautioned the armed security forces to respect the rule of law and abide by the statutory demands of their duties to the people of Ekiti State and halt any further attempts to employ intimidation, harassment and psychological torture all in an attempt to scuttle a free, fair, transparent and peaceful conduct of the governorship poll scheduled for this Saturday July 14^th 2018 in Ekiti State. HURIWA described the physical attacks on the persons of the governor and his deputy by the armed police as an 'assassination attempt' and has called for a judicial commission of inquiry to investigate this grave crime and bring the perpetrators and their political sponsors to book.

HURIWA in a statement by its National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director miss Zainab Yusuf stated that: “We have just been alerted by our members in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State of the unusual large numbers of armed security forces parading the streets of Ekiti State just few days to the much anticipated governorship poll in which the Presidency has openly declared her determination to win by all means. We were also informed of a reported siege of the Ekiti State government house by armed police and the direct physical torture by the police of the duo of the Ekiti state governor and his deputy in clear violation of section 308(1). We view the attempt on the lives of these two gentlemen as serious crimes that must not be swept under the carpets. We absolutely condemn this primitive resort to self-help by the presidency that has decided to unleash brute force on the people of Ekiti State so as to manipulate the electoral process to favour his political party (APC) and to deny the electorate their constitutional right to elect their own governor that will promote and protect their general interests.”

Citing section 39 (1) and 40 of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, HURIWA said it was unlawful and unconstitutional for armed police to invade the government house in Ekiti on the instruction of the Inspector General of Police to inhibit and violate with reckless abandon and crass impunity, the enjoyment by the people of their freedom of movement and association which are guaranteed under several international human rights laws and the supreme law of Nigeria which is in the 1999 Constitution that have unambiguous and binding human rights provisions in chapter 4". "The attack on the governor and his deputy should be considered attempted murder and the culprits must be arrested, prosecuted and sanctioned in the competent courts of law. The police which is a creation of a statute is not above the law."

Specifically, section 39 (1) provides that “Every person shall be entitled to freedom of expression, including freedom to hold opinions and receive and impart ideas and information without interference, “even as section 40 provides that “Every person shall be entitled to assemble freely and to associate with other persons, and in particular he may form or belong to any political party, trade union or any other association for the protection of his interests.”

HURIWA believes that it is criminal for armed police maintained at public costs to become slaves to some forces and to be employed in Ekiti State to curtail the constitutional rights of the citizenry.
HURIWA said by virtue of several constitutional provisions must operate with the invitation of the State governor who is the Chief security officer of the State just as the Rights group faulted the decision of the President to deploy the police to achieve pre-determined political goal.

HURIWA stated that Section 215 (2) (3) (4) (5) stated thus: (2) “The Nigeria police force shall be under the command of the Inspector-General of Police and any contingents of the Nigeria Police Force stationed in a State shall, subject to the authority of the Inspector-General of police, be under the command of the commissioner of Police of that State. (3) “The President or such other Minister of the Government of the Federation as he may authorize in that behalf may give to the Inspector-General of Police such lawful directions with respect to the maintenance and securing of public safety and public order as he may consider necessary, and the Inspector-General of Police shall comply with those directions or cause them to be compiled with.” (4) “Subject to the provisions of this section, the Governor of a state or such commissioner of the Government of the State as he authorize in that behalf, may give to the Commissioner of police of that state such lawful directions with respect to the maintenance and securing of public safety and public order within the State as he may consider necessary, and the commissioner of police shall comply with those directions or cause them to be complied with – provided that before carrying out any such directions under the foregoing provisions of this subsection the commissioner of police may request that the matter be referred to the President or such minister of the Government of the Federation as may be authorized in that behalf by the President for this directions."

The Rise and Rise of 'Nigerian' outlaws By Emmanuel Onwubiko

Tomorrow July 10^th 2018, my young sister-in-law Miss Chidinma Izuagba will join her fellow law school graduates to be called to the Nigerian Bar as solicitor and advocates of the supreme court of Nigeria.

The Nigerian council for legal education which coordinates the solemn annual ceremonies of call to the Nigerian bar and the hierarchy of the Nigerian judiciary are some of the finest minds in legal scholarship. There are accusations however that the headship of the Nigerian legal professional training institutions is determined in the current dispensation by nepotistic threshold. But even this imperfection has not derailed the widely known fact that our legal terrain is populated by some of the finest minds in the legal profession.

The formidable intellectual competences of the men and women who run the legal system in Nigeria goes to show that Nigeria does not lack the expertise in law to be able to transform Nigeria to join the rest of the global community and especially the advanced democracies to adhere strictly to the Rule of law and to maintain constitutional purity.

On yearly basis, Nigeria churns out approximately 50,000 young lawyers who are immediately absorbed either in the public or private bars as legal practitioners even as others manage to navigate their ways into various other professional callings.

What the above scenarios depicted is that Nigeria is endowed enormously with the requisite manpower and/or trained human resources to administer an efficient and an effective legal system.
In real life however, Nigeria is a country confronted by the apparent weakness and systemic rot manifested in the near -snailspeed that the wheel of justice is administered.

To make matters worst, the failure of the political process to throw up Nigeria’s first eleven into strategic political offices means that those who get elected and/or appointed into public offices with total disregard to merits, competences and professionalism, have consistently polluted the public space with all kinds of misdeamenours which includes their disregard for the rule of law and constitutionalism.

In the current dispensation, many top government officials parade one forged academic qualifications or the other. The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Prosecution Mr. Obono Obla was accused by West African Examination Council of parading forged WAEC certificate. Finance minister is reportedly parading forged NYSC discharged certificate, an allegation she hasn't denied. Mr. President has yet to produce his authentic WAEC certificate and when some lawyers went to court to get him disqualified on this ground the plaintiffs faced threats to their lives which forced them to abandon this line of inquisition. The government at the center is therefore saturated by alleged outlaws.

Although Nigeria has a written constitution with other statutes which codifies how those who run foul of established societal norms and laws ought to be prosecuted and sanctioned in compliance with the principle of rule of law, what we notice is that most Nigerians have the belief that if they have people holding strategic offices they can undermine the administration of criminal justice in Nigeria.

The above situation can find explanation in the impunity with which some armed Fulani herdsmen have unleashed violence of unquantifiable dimension. With thousands of innocent Nigerians killed by armed Fulani herdsmen but not one killer is behind bars and all that the government does is to engage in double speak and the brazen unleashing of falsehoods. As the government at the center engaged spin doctors to spread propaganda freeing the real killers from their heinous crimes, the armed herdsmen have become emboldened to spread their tentacles of killer machines in the North central states. 

These suspected armed Fulani herdsmen, understandably believe that since their kinsman Muhammadu Buhari is the president of Nigeria, there is very little that can be done to check their excesses.

There is a reasonable ground to believe that the presidency actively encourages and motivates these sets of outlaws masquerading as armed Fulani herdsmen who are responsible for the wave of bloody attacks in many farming communities populated by largely Christians in the North Central region of Nigeria.

This is because the president has chosen to look the other way whilst these devastating attacks are carried on.

The media unit of the current presidency has on many occasions circulated media statements to exonerate Miyetti Allah Cattle Owners Association of blame in the spate of attacks.
This is even as this Miyetti Allah Cattle Owners Association through many of her officials have been quoted in the media either threatening to cause violence or justifying these acts of violence on the ground that the communities so attacked by armed Fulani herdsmen were responsible for theft of unspecified number of cows.

The presidency under Buhari has consistently found different ways to explain away the involvement in these attacks of Fulani herdsmen.
This tendency of the current presidency to defend armed Fulani herdsmen and to shift blames to the so-called politicians runs contrary to the constitutional oath of office of president Buhari and the rudimentary constitutional duty of the holder of the office of president which is to protect lives and property of the citizenry.

Aside those weighty constitutional implications, what is now at play is that by omission or commission, the current federal government has granted licences for the rise and rise of many variants of outlaws who are now operating as if there will be no tomorrow.

It is no longer a hidden fact that many Nigerians who should know have tasked president Buhari to combat these armed insurgency of his kinsmen by applying appropriate sanctions supported by the laws of Nigeria so as to whittle down the rise of these out laws who have grown wings.

One question on the lips of most Nigerians is why President Buhari quickly declared Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) whose members are non-violent as terror group but is busy finding and manufacturing logically untenable excuses all in a futile bid to exonerate armed Fulani herdsmen of blame in the dastardly criminal acts of atrocious mass murders.

Some persons have asked why President Buhari wants to establish ranches with government money to placate Fulani herdsmen if he thinks they are not the persons killing the farmers.
In plateau state, there are reports that in those communities ransacked by armed Fulani herdsmen, the attackers have forcefully taken over the communities from the ancestral owners who are all in the internally displaced people’s camps and have even renamed their communities. Special Media Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari Mr. Femi Adesina told the media that Nigerians are better alive than to die struggling for ancestral lands.

The presidency must be told that playing on the collective intelligence of Nigerians through deployment of massive public funds to sponsor half-baked and illogical propaganda to sow seeds of confusion on who are the mass killers, will not bring about lasting peace. Manipulating the security forces to parade choreographed suspects so as to exonerate armed Fulani herdsmen is both disingenuous and vexatious.

Peace can only come when there is justice and equity. 
Several respected personalities have faulted the false claims circulated by the presidency and some elements in the security forces controlled and headed by mostly Hausa/Fulani Moslems; which strive to shift the blame away from the correct source of all the attacks – armed Fulani herdsmen.
Tried as they could to market the misperception that there are clashes between farmers and Fulani herders rather than call a spade by its name, most knowledgeable Nigerians and even survivors of these attacks know that the persons carrying out these atrocities are armed Fulani herdsmen – no more, no less.

One of such personalities is the catholic Archbishop of Jos Reverend Dr. Ignatius Kaigama who rightly affirmed that the killings by armed Fulani herdsmen in Nigeria have continued to escalate because Fulani herders believe President Muhammadu Buhari who is also a Fulani man, is their ally and for that reason they can do whatever they want and go scot-free.

The cleric made these verifiable claims in an interview recently with the Catholic Church’s humanitarian agency, Aid to the church in need (ACN), published on its website.
“Not enough has been done to challenge the herdsmen killings. That could either be because of a so-called ‘hidden agenda’ or simply the absence of courage, determination, patriotism and political will. Cattle, as important as they are, cannot be valued over human beings. That does not mean that cows should be wounded, stolen or killed. Our President should come out clearly, categorically and courageously to explain to his kinsmen why dialogue is the best solution.”

But my lord, the Archbishop of Jos should be told that President Buhari has come out openly to state that the killers are Libyans, that the killings are sponsored by his political enemies and that his kinsmen carry only sticks and cutlass.

But ironically, President Buhari has asked the victims of these attacks to accommodate the attackers.
Mr. President, Nigerians are asking you to explain why you told president Trump that those doing the attacks are from Libya but you are also asking the victims whose lands are now taken away by the occupying forces of armed Fulani herdsmen to accommodate their attackers if they are Libyans. Why do you want the ranches if Fulani herdsmen are not the mass killers?

These politically tainted fallacies oozing out from the current presidency goes to show that the Fulani out laws have the support of some top persons in government.
Indeed these armed Fulani out laws who are seen as mass murderers by millions of Nigerians are celebrated by the presidency as good people who only bear sticks and harmless cutlasses. The truth however is that they are out laws through and through.

I adopt the views expressed in www.vocabularly.com about who an outlaw is.
"An outlaw is a criminal who's on the run. Historically, the word outlaw was used for Western criminals like Billy the Kid or Jesse James, not so much for contemporary drug lords or serial killers."

"Because they didn't need to be arrested by a police officer or other official, pursuing outlaws was once a way to earn reward money. The outlaw figure became popular due to the almost romantic image of nonconformity they had — outlaws are common characters in Western books and movies. You can also use outlaw to mean "ban or make illegal." If you had your way, you might outlaw spinach, long lines, and stinky perfume."

The people of Nigeria must collectively speak out and adopt a range of civil disobedience activities to draw the attention of the World leaders to the government backed insurgency of the armed Fulani outlaws. The time to act is now.

*Emmanuel Onwubiko heads the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) and blogs@www.emmanuelonwubiko.com;www.huriwanigeria.com; www.huriwa.blogspot.com.