A pro-democracy and leading non-governmental organization – HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has tasked President Muhammadu Buhari to admit his spectacular failure in stopping the taking into hostage and gruesome murders of some aid workers by the armed boko haram terrorists.
HURIWA said that by virtue of a plethora of municipal and international humanitarian laws that are binding on all persons and authorities holding such political position of a head of state and head of government, President Muhammadu Buhari has no valid, justifiable, rational, coherent, verifiable and cogent excuses to make for his administrations serial failures to effectively curb the heightened situation of terror attacks by such non state actors like the armed Islamists known as boko haram terrorists. HURIWA quoted the 1994 declaration adopted by the United Nations as measures to eliminate international terrorism, states are obliged to put practical measures to ensure that their territories are not used for terrorist installations, training camps or for the preparation of terrorist acts against citizens even as it wondered why Sambisa forests have yet to be totally liberated going by video evidence circulated by the terror masterminds.
Besides, HURIWA has also asked President Muhammadu Buhari to declare as national heroines all those girls slaughtered by boko haram terrorists including Leah Sharibu and others still being held by the diverse factions of the dreaded armed Islamists in the North East of Nigeria.
As part of the national declaration of those massacred by boko haram terrorists as heroes/heroines including the aid worker Miss Hauwa Liman, the Federal government must pay heavy compensations of not less than N50 million to the families and grant full scholarships up to university levels to the children of those left behind by the victims of terrorists and most especially those taken as hostages. HURIWA argues that it is the constitutional obligation of government not to allow armed bandits and terrorists to roam freely and abduct citizens just as it stated that the blame for this failure lies squarely with the head of state and commander in chief of the armed forces of Nigeria.
HURIWA stated that the capture of the three or so aid workers embedded with the international committee of the Red cross/crescent, including Miss Hauwa Liman and her colleagues were completely avoidable given that her capture was reportedly recorded on the social media.
“The successes recorded by the terrorists in capturing hostages of high value and other successes they have recorded in the recent deadly attacks of military formations and the killings of hundreds of soldiers must have been caused by poor intelligence gathering and failure to act when information is relayed to the armed security forces.”
“President Buhari should stop insulting our sensibilities by claiming that his government did all they could but never succeeded in stopping the hostage scenarios and the consequential gruesome killings.”
"This is because that statement is a total admission that this current government no longer has workable strategy to stop these spates of attacks by armed terrorists. The primary duty of government legally is to protect lives and property of Nigerians. The failure to stop the killings of hostages by boko haram terrorists is a failure of constitutional responsibility for which the Nigerian government was elected. Instead of apologizing to the parents of the dead, we are regaled with the press statement that president Buhari personally called the parents to claim that he did his best. It means his best is not good enough.”
HURIWA recalled that expert opinion has it that although in principle human rights can be violated by any person or group, and in fact human rights abuses committed against the backdrop of globalization by non-state actors (transnational corporations, organized crime, international terrorism, guerrilla and Para-military forces and even intergovernmental organizations) are on the increase, under present international law, only states assume direct obligations in relation to human rights.
HURIWA stated also that: We hereby remind the President of Nigeria that: "By becoming parties to international human rights treaties, states incur three broad obligations: the duties to respect, to protect and to fulfill. While the balance between these obligations or duties may vary according to the rights involved, they apply in principle to all civil and political rights and all economic, social and cultural rights. Moreover, states have a duty to provide a remedy at the domestic level for human rights violations.”
“The state ‘obligation to respect’ means that the state is obliged to refrain from interfering. It entails the prohibition of certain acts by Governments that may undermine the enjoyment of rights. For example, with regard to the right to education, it means that governments must respect the liberty of parents to establish private schools and to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in accordance with their own convictions.”
“The ‘obligation to protect’ requires states to protect individuals against abuses by non-state actors. Once again, the right to education can serve as an example. The right of children to education must be protected by the state from interference and indoctrination by third parties, including parents and the family, teachers and the school, religions, sects, clans and business firms. States enjoy a broad margin of appreciation with respect to this obligation. For instance, the right to personal integrity and security obliges states to combat the widespread phenomenon of domestic violence against women and children: although not every single act of violence by a husband against his wife, or by parents against their children, constitutes a human rights violation for which the state may be held accountable, governments have a responsibility to take positive measures – in the form of pertinent criminal, civil, family or administrative laws, police and judiciary training or general awareness raising – to reduce the incidence of domestic violence.”
No comments:
Post a Comment