The group condemned the killing of students in Yobe
State.
A non-governmental organization, Human Rights Writers Association
of Nigeria, HURIWA, has tasked the president, Goodluck
Jonathan to find and enforce effective and sustainable panacea to the widening
cases of terrorism and violent killing of innocent Nigerians in the North East
and North Central states rather than resort to issuing media statements that
sound like evangelical sermons.
The group said this in a statement reacting
to the president’s response after the reports of the killing of about 29 school
children in Yobe State last weekend. Mr. Jonathan, in a statement issued by his
media aide, Reuben Abati, said those
who committed the crime would “go to hell.”
HURIWA in its statement, jointly signed by
its National coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko and National Media Affairs
Director, Zainab Yusuf, said the remark by the President is not only
un-presidential but smacks of a “panicky presidency.”
It tasked the federal government to work,
more seriously, towards a functional, effective, efficient, result-oriented and
fool proof pro-active intelligence-driven measures and mechanism which will
stop the spread of these “evil acts” of mindless slaughter of innocent
Nigerians by suspected terrorists in North East and suspected hired Fulani
mercenary fighters who are eliminating local farmers in the North Central states
of Benue and Nasarawa.
“Nigerians elected and swore in President
Jonathan and not ‘SAINT JONATHAN’, therefore it is not in the place of the
President of Nigeria, a constitutional leader to dictate who will go to ‘hell’
or not but it is the duty of the President to provide security of lives and
property of Nigerians everywhere,” HURIWA, said.
The group condemned the Yobe killing,
describing it as inhuman, brutal, primitive, and illegal; and charged the
federal government to ensure that the wheel of criminal justice administration
is not undermined by the active conspiracy of the government funded contraption
known as presidential amnesty committee headed by the Special Duties Minister.
“The Nigerian government must be focused;
decisive and constitutional in the fight to combat terrorism. Government must
protect Nigerians from this unwarranted violence that is spreading like wild
fire. Perpetrators of mass killing must be charged before courts of competent
jurisdiction and prosecuted by patriotic and professionally competent officials
from the office of the Federal Attorney General. We are sick and tired of
hearing sermons from the presidency each time that bloody pogrom takes place,”
the group said.
The group also challenged the Federal
Government to step up radical and comprehensive law reform measures and the
criminal justice administration in Nigeria so as to stamp out the regime of
impunity which, it said, is the root cause of the growing spate of terrorism
and violent killings of innocent Nigerians by armed non-state actors.
HURIWA noted that pragmatic solution to the
unprecedented scale of violent crimes and terrorism in Nigeria can only be
achieved through effective multi-sectoral and multi-dimensional mechanism to be
worked out and collectively implemented by the Federal Government with all
relevant tiers of government including the national assembly, state governments
and relevant stakeholders in the civil society.
It stated that the offices of federal
attorney general and that of chief justice of Nigeria must actively collaborate
to work out fool- proof mechanism on quick dispensation of justice to criminal
elements that are posing serious security nightmare to Nigeria.
The group urged Mr. Jonathan to compel the
justice ministry and the hierarchy of the nation’s judiciary to join the
coordinated war against terrorism by competently generating sound and
scientific-based evidence for the prosecution and conviction of suspected armed
terrorists who are currently being detained.
HURIWA said any measure or political
arrangement that is extra-legal or that entails release of suspected terrorists
under any guise of political amnesty is tantamount to extending official seal
to the ongoing regime of impunity and anarchy in parts of Northern Nigeria.
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