A leading pro-democracy and civil Rights advocacy group
– HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has told the Inspector
General of police Alhaji Mohammed Adamu that he will go down in history as the
nation’s chief law enforcement officer who for pedestrian regional and
religious underpinnings chose to 'wine and dine' with armed bandits rather than
wield the big stick against the lawless mass murders in the North West of
Nigeria.
The Rights group has therefore condemned the decision by
some northern governors of Katsina, Zamfara and Sokoto to go into negotiations
with armed Fulani bandits responsible for hundreds of deaths and the
destructions of properties of both the individuals and the states worth several
billions as against enforcement of relevant laws against murders and
criminality.
In a media statement, HURIWA through the National
Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director
Miss. Zainab Yusuf condemned the Inspector General of police for virtually
branding armed bandits in the North as freedom fighters. HURIWA said the
interview in which the police chief supported the ongoing unconstitutional
unholy communion between Northern State governors and armed bandits will go
down in the history of what would be left of Nigeria as the darkest period of
the Nation state because it is inconceivable that an officer of the law would
boldly defecate on top of the sacred laws of the Country.
HURIWA stated: “Let it be known to the current IGP
Mohammed Adamu that his latest statement equating criminal armed mass killers
as same as the Niger Delta agitators is not only disingenuous, pedestrian,
spurious, puerile and myopic, but it is a direct affront to the constitution of
Nigeria”.
HURIWA said that it was absolutely wrong to have
compared the Niger Delta agitators who took up arms to compel the multinational
crude oil producing entities to stop polluting and destroying the ecosystem and
the overall environments with pure brigands and armed bandits in the North West
who have no cause for their odious, atrocious and totally unlawful actions of
killing children, women and old people all in the name of seeking to obtain the
unlawful opportunities of dialoguing with politicians for financial benefits.
It is so wrong that the IGP is being allowed to defecate on the constitution.
This trend of thought is similar to a victim of rape championing the cause of
the rapists.
HURIWA stated that it is totally incorrect to compare
Niger Delta agitators with armed bandits of North West unless the political
class in the North alongside their allies in the security forces are now
accepting the responsibility for setting up the bandits in their bid to win big
compensations for the criminals.
“The Niger Delta agitators fought for a just cause and
were never known to have killed civilians. Niger Delta is the region that has
provided 98% of the mainstay of Nigeria’s economy by way of crude oil
resources. The environment was devastated and the people whose livelihoods were
devastated by the activities of crude oil explorations demanded for justice.
Why will the IGP compare these freedom fighters that killed no civilians to
armed bandits of North West who killed hundreds of their own people?”
HURIWA has therefore demanded the sacking of the IGP
Mohammed Adamu for playing the role of the advocate for Northern armed bandits
in direct contradiction with the constitutional provision which necessitated
the creation of the police as an institution of law enforcement”.
“Those who have embraced criminality of armed banditry
in any part of Nigeria must be arrested and dealt with in accordance with the
law of the land. Section 33(1) of the constitution clearly spells out that
illegal killing of citizens must absolutely never be tolerated. Section 215(1)
(2) and (3) are clear that IGP must carry out only lawful directions and it
states: “(1) 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 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
direction or cause them to be compiled with".
Similarly, the budget of N100 billion been proposed for
the implementation of the National Livestock Transformation Plan has been
described by HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) as the
attempt by the central government to grant compensation package to members of
the armed Fulani herdsmen who are nothing but terrorists that ought to be
prosecuted and locked up for killings and destruction of farmlands and farmers
including Catholic priests in all parts of Nigeria.
HURIWA recalled that the proposal submitted on Thursday
to the National Economic Council by its Sub-Committee on Farmers/Herders’
crisis is a direct affront to constitutionalism because the central government
plans to bribe aggressors whereas the victims of the terror attacks by armed
Fulani herdsmen are left to their fate and to wallow in poverty and want.
“HURIWA is of the opinion that the NEC meeting presided
over by a severely incapacitated and weakened Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo at
the Presidential Villa, Abuja is simply an effort to smuggle from the backdoor
the RUGA SETTLEMENT PROGRAMME for Fulani’s which most Nigerians in the South
and parts of Northern States especially in the North Central states
rejected. We read that the Chairman of
the sub-committee and Governor of Ebonyi State, Mr. Dave Umahi, made the
presentation to NEC. Also disingenuously, Mr. Umahi
explained that contrary to the widely held belief, the NLTP was not about cows
alone but had three planks, including care for persons displaced by
farmers/herders’ crisis and education programmes. He also repeated the
propaganda lines of the Presidency that states are
free to use any animals of their choice in implementing the programme. It's a
big shame that the governor
said the committee proposed that the Federal Government would bear 80 per cent
of the N100bn, while participating states would support with the balance of
N20bn and land for the programme and added that the
programme remained voluntary and would accommodate only states that expressed
participation interest".
HURIWA has
therefore called for a discontinuation of the discriminatory policy of
rewarding armed Fulani herdsmen for their criminal activities of killings of
farmers and destruction of communities all across Nigeria.
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