A leading non-governmental and
pro-democracy organization – HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA
(HURIWA) has called for a concerted effort and synergy between religious and
political leaders of Nigeria to adopt a holistic national policy on violent
kidnappings and how to check the astronomic rise in the violent crime.
HURIWA also challenged President
Muhammadu Buhari to table the matter of violent kidnappings in the sub-region
before a high level consultative parley of the Economic community of West
African States (ECOWAS) because the menace is harming industrialization in West
Africa and discouraging direct foreign investors from bringing their businesses
to the kidnappings prone region.
HURIWA said it has noted with
regret that over the past decade the crime of violent criminal abductions/kidnappings
of Nigerians for ransom payments have only received lips service and piecemeal
cosmetic approach without any major national momentum to criminalize these
vicious acts of depravity and enforce capital punishment as the legal
sanctions. HURIWA accused the police and other security agencies of colluding
to perpetuate the crimes of armed kidnappings going by the likelihood that they
may be receiving pay offs from the bandits who have become increasingly daring
and sophisticated. HURIWA wondered why the nation has failed to invest
substantially in technology as a viable means of waging science based fight
against violent kidnappers.
In a statement by the National
Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and National Media Affairs Director Miss
Zainab Yusuf, HURIWA disclosed that by next week it will present letters
demanding global actions to the global office of Amnesty International in
London and the British parliament in Westminster.
Besides, HURIWA has resolved to
present a petition to the primate of Anglican Church worldwide in the United
Kingdom next week and to dispatch a written presentation to the Holy Father
Pope Francis in Rome to demand global leaders’ intervention because the crimes
of kidnappings have become of the greatest cause of death of religious leaders
in Nigeria and the sub-region.
“We call on the leadership of the
Catholic Bishops conference of Nigeria (CBCN), the Christian Association of
Nigeria and the Nigerian Council for Islamic Affairs, to meet President
Muhammadu Buhari, the council of states and the National Assembly to confront
the national security emergency created by the unprecedented rates of armed
violent kidnappings in Nigeria.”
HURIWA believes that kidnappers
both from within and without have discovered that the Nigerian government
tolerates impunity of widespread mass killings by all kinds of freelance armed
hoodlums so they have evolved a thriving industry of armed kidnappings for
payments aided by some rogue elements in the police and security forces.” It
therefore tasked the Federal government to also inaugurate a probe panel made
up of internationally acclaimed forensic investors drawn from across the globe
to fish out operatives and officers of the police and other security forces who
are actively participating in the thriving criminal enterprise of armed
kidnappings for monetary settlements.
HURIWA recalled that Killings and
kidnapping of priests, the religious and other pastoral workers especially in
West Africa, seem to be on the increase just as it noted that the English
Africa Service, Vatican News from the Vatican City has now beamed its
searchlight on this emerging but sinister criminal gagsterism of armed
kidnappings.
HURIWA recalled that the Vatican
news channel stated that although it is worth bearing in mind that by far the
majority of victims in killings and kidnappings are ordinary innocent persons,
crimes targeting religious pastoral workers seem to be on the rise, in Africa.
HURIWA recalled that six days after
being kidnapped by unknown gunmen from his parish house, the body of Fr.
Clement Rapuluchukwu Ugwu was found Wednesday, this week. He was buried
Thursday after Mass at the Holy Ghost Cathedral Church, Ogui Enugu. The Bishop
of Enugu Diocese, Callistus Onaga, celebrated the Mass.
Fr. Ugwu was abducted on the night
of 13 March from the parish house of St. Mark’s Catholic Church, Obinofia,
Ndiuno in Ezeagu LGA of Enugu State. The kidnappers shot him before taking him
away with them.
The Guardian - Nigeria quoted
Bishop Onaga saying the increasing spate of violent killings in the country was
worrying. Both the Bishop and the Diocesan Director of Communications, Fr.
Benjamin Achi, called on the state government to live up to its responsibility
of protecting lives and property.
Besides, HURIWA recalled that
Agenzia Fides reports that Capuchin priest, Fr. Toussaint Zoumaldé, a native of
the Central African Republic was killed in Ngaoundéré, Cameroon on his way to
Baibokoum in Chad.
According to a statement released
by the General Custody of the Capuchins for Chad and the Central African
Republic, Fr. Toussaint Zoumaldé had gone to the Diocese of Bouar, in the
western part of Central African Republic to conduct some training. In the night
between 19 and 20 March, unknown people attacked and killed him in Ngaoundéré
(Cameroon) where he had made an overnight stop.
Fr. Toussaint (born in 1971) had
worked as the Director of Radio Siriri, in the Diocese of Bouar.
Similarly, HURIWA recalled that In
the meantime, the Bishop of Dori, Laurent Dabiré, in the northern part of
Burkina Faso had through the media expressed sadness that there is no news
concerning the disappearance of Fr. Joël Yougbaré, the parish priest of Djibo.
Recall that last Sunday after
celebrating Sunday Mass in Bottogui, Fr. Joël Yougbaré was returning to his
parish house along the Djibo-Tongomayel-Nianguel-Sergoussouma-Bottogui road and
since then had not been seen. No one knows what became of him. However, the
Bishop told Agenzia Fides that the area where the priest disappeared is unsafe
due to the presence of jihadist groups.
Also, HURIWA recalled that in
mid-February, a Spanish priest and four customs officers were killed in a
jihadist attack in eastern Burkina Faso. Similarly, an Italian missionary, Fr.
Pierluigi Maccalli, a priest of the Society for African Missions was kidnapped
on 17 September 2018 in Tillaberi.
HURIWA recalled that the Islamic
advisor to President Muhammadu Buhari Sheikh Ahmad Sulaiman was kidnapped last
week in Katsina and a N300 million ransom demands made by the kidnappers to his
family made through a call just as the mother in law of the Katsina state
governor was kidnapped for two and later released. A reporter with Channels to
was kidnapped at the weekend in Abuja and a N50 million ransom demand was
slammed on his family.
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