FRONTLINE NIGERIAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST SET TO GO ON HUNGER STRIKE OVER ASUU STRIKE Frontline Nigerian Rights Activist Set to go on Hunger Strike over ASUU Strike:

A frontline Nigerian rights activist, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, is set to go on a hunger strike as his contribution towards ending industrial action by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), which has crippled the country’s public universities since July 1.

ASUU is seeking to force the federal government to fulfill an agreement reached in 2009 under which government is supposed to have committed at half a trillion naira to the country’s university sector. ASUU has rejected the N130 billion offered by the Goodluck Jonathan administration, insisting on full implementation of the agreement.

Writing on his Facebook wall, Onwubiko, National Coordinator of the Abuja-based Human Rights Writers’ Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), said: “Watch out: I will announce the date for commencement of a two-day hunger strike in support of ending ASUU strike, reopening public universities and adequately funding them and for lecturers engaging in sex-for-marks to be identified and prosecuted by ICPC/and/or EFCC. When the date is disclosed, I will solicit your support and prayers.”

Contacted this morning, Onwubiko, who is also a Columnist with News Express, said that there is no going back on the hunger strike. He disclosed that it would hold “next week Tuesday/Wednesday,” adding: “I will issue a press release today.”

October 17th, 2013

OPINION: AS POLICE CHARGES FEES FOR ANTI-KIDNAPPING

In case you haven’t read the allegation made by a membership group in which I am seriously involved with in the last decade that the Nigerian Police Force in Anambra state command specifically charges a variety of service charges from family members of victims of armed kidnappings, then I will extend you the privilege of reading that public statement in full.

It goes thus: A Democracy Inclined Non-Governmental Organization-HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA [HURIWA] has urged the Presidency and the National Security Adviser to the President Colonel Sambo Dasuki [rtd] to launch a transparent and comprehensive investigation of the groundswell of allegations that the police establishment in Anambra State may have some form of partnership with some hardened kidnappers going by the widespread allegations that the Anambra State Command of the Nigerian Police Force charges between N500,000 and N1million from family members of victims of armed kidnappings for the purposes of rescuing them even after payment of ransoms to the violent gangs.

HURIWA said the solution to kidnappings will squarely be actualised if and only if the crime is made less profitable to both the evil practitioners of violent criminal kidnappings and the rogue elements within the security establishment especially the Nigerian Police Force who capitalise on the hysteria and apprehension of the family members of kidnapped persons to extort huge payments under different illegal guises.

The Rights group has also carpeted the National Assembly for abysmally failing to institutionalise state and local policing institutions through the soon-to-be completed constitutional amendment process just as HURIWA said the failure of the legislature at the national and sub-national level to pass the relevant amendment clauses in the extant constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria which would have necessitated the establishment of state police to compliment the federal policing institutions means that Nigeria as a corporate entity is not desirous to resolve the growing threats to the territorial integrity of the nation posed by insecurity and armed groups of all affiliations.

HURIWA said it was compelled to alert President Good luck Jonathan about the malpractices going on within the policing institution in Southern Nigeria with specific reference to the widening frontiers of armed kidnappings especially in the South Eastern state of Anambra which has defied all effort by the current Anambra state government to contain the menace including the demolition of housing assets owned by suspected kidnappers resident in Anambra state by the deluge of calls it gets from members of the public. HURIWA wants President Jonathan to sanitize the Nigerian Police force and eradicate all rogue elements that have infiltrated the institution and President would be ensured that posterity would eternally remain appreciative of this legacy of his presidency if achieved.

Condemning as outrageous, criminal and deceitful the alleged demand and receipts of handsome anti-kidnappings ‘service charges’ by the Anambra state police command the Rights group said the fact that the Nigerian Police makes huge profits from the misfortunes of families of kidnapped persons would make the evil practice of armed kidnappings difficult if not impossible to frontally challenged and crushed decisively.

HURIWA in a statement signed jointly by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director Miss Zainab Yusuf advised the Federal Government and the relevant state governments in the South East to conduct a discreet investigation to ascertain the veracity or otherwise of these disturbing allegations which if unchecked could compound the phenomenon of armed kidnappings of Nigerians by suspected hoodlums who allegedly conspire with some rogue elements in the security community to perpetrate these heinous crimes against humanity.

”The Nigerian Government and the relevant state governments in the South whereby these kidnappings have remained unresolved and unchecked should conduct independent investigation by asking some family members [in cameral to avoid recrimination by armed police and their associates in the underworld] of the victims of this dastardly crime of kidnappings to ascertain the veracity or otherwise of the claims that they usually come under intense pressure by the security operatives to part with their hard earned money to enable these police and other security agents to launch manhunt for these kidnappers. We have been inundated by many callers who have complained that they were made to cough out huge payments to the police commands especially that of Anambra state ranging from N500,000 to N1 million. These payments are never receipted because they are illegal and these incentives are what motivates these crimes of kidnappings to continue since the men and officers of the Nigerian Police allegedly benefit from the misfortunes of kidnapped Nigerians. The Nigerian state must restore strict discipline within the ranks and file as the most strategic way of ending the persistent cases of kidnappings. President Jonathan should please help Nigerians to end this debilitating and vicious crime that has cost many lives and precious wealth of law abiding Nigerians.”

Many national newspapers gave generous coverage to this allegation which came from numerous sources of the very people involved but who preferred anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the matter and because of the peculiar situation that Nigeria is in right now whereby any genuine effort to make changes in the society is resisted violently. Incidentally in one of the editions that ran this allegation the Nigerian Police Force through the spokesman responded to this allegation and as usual denied knowledge of this scenario and demanded from us evidence before the hierarchy of the Nigerian Police can act upon it. The issue in focus is not that our organization called on the police hierarchy to initiate investigation r to use internal mechanisms to stop this practice of extorting money from family members of victims of armed kidnappings because in that very public statement we made it clear that we are calling on President Good luck Jonathan through the office of the national security adviser to do thorough and an independent investigation into these range of allegations and to restore discipline in the ranks and file of the Nigerian Police Force.

Sadly, the Nigerian Police Force seems comfortably ensconced in the muddy waters of scandals for many years and decades and unfortunately each time a new person is appointed to head this decadent policing institution the hopes that the history of indiscipline and spectacular absence of professionalism fades with each passing day because the new Inspector General of Police will first and foremost follow the bureaucratic steps of paying courtesy visits to state commands and usually show more interest in ingratiating himself with the political class rather than concentrate on introducing a set of revolutionary changes that will reshape the public face of this institution that over the years has become the public face of corruption and bribery.

Most Nigerians are already aware of the notorious fact that the Nigerian Police as an institution is not to be trusted to comprehensively tackle the challenges of indiscipline that has afflicted the ranks and file and even the top echelon of the force over the several years of its existence. Take a walk across your street and ask just any adult about the level of confidence and trust he/she has in the institution of the Nigerian Police Force and I can assure you that out of every ten persons you may run into not even a person will tell you that he/she has unimpeded trust and confidence in the Nigerian Police Force. The job before the new management of the police are enormous but the most strategic is to restore service discipline because there is a deep rooted stench of gross indiscipline amongst the ranks and file and even the management of the Nigerian Police. Way back in Lagos there was this particular incident of crime that occurred somewhere around Mafoluku whereby a victim of armed robbery operation was reportedly amputated by the criminals because he couldn’t afford to give them any valuable item because in his own words all fingers are not equal and when a neighbour alerted a near by police station those robbers walked straight to the neighbour and challenged him to put another call across to the police.

This allegation of demand and receipt of service charges by police for going after alleged armed kidnappers must be probed and the political and business establishments in the South East must take it upon themselves to root out this evil practice by the police because if kidnappings are not rooted out then business environment will be brutally risky and the situation of gross underdevelopment afflicting the South East will continue. The Police Service Commission must be professionalised because for now the Chairman and commissioners heading that establishment haven’t played good enough role to check the widening corruption and lack of discipline that has become the part and parcel of the Nigerian Police Force. Mike Okiro who heads the Police service commission should play less of partisan politics with his valuable time and devote much of these times changing the face of the Nigerian Police which he was privileged to have served and retired as the Inspector General of Police.

Written by Emmanuel Onwubiko, head of Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria

http://thewillnigeria.com/

January 09, 2015 

HURIWA canvasses more women in incoming govt.

Makes case for the physically challenged 
HUMAN Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) yesterday urged the President-Elect Muhammadu Buhari to improve on the performance of the outgoing president, Goodluck Jonathan in the appointment of women in his cabinet.

The Rights group also tasked Buhari-led administration to include the physically challenged in the composition of the Executive Council of the federation.

In a statement by its National Coordinator, Mr. Emmanuel Onwubiko, the group expressed worry that since 1999 all successive federal administrations have consistently left out the physically challenged persons in the society as far as appointments to positions of responsibilities are concerned.

Canvassing immediate redress of the neglect suffered by the groups over the years, the rights group particularly reminded the President-elect to maintain the tempo of greater involvement of women in strategic cabinet level positions as institutionalised by the outgoing President Goodluck Jonathan led administration.

HURIWA specifically asked Buhari to surpass the antecedent already set by the out-going President Goodluck Jonathan-led Federal Government by appointing more quality and corruption-free women into the Federal cabinet to achieve gender parity and proper gender mainstreaming into the governance of Nigeria at the highest levels.

HURIWA also maintained that the continuous non-inclusion of the physically challenged Nigerian citizens in the hierarchy of civil governance at the federal level amounted to the perpetuation of the gross violation of section 14(3) of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria of 1999 (as amended) and insisted that this persistent right violation must be torpedoed now. Underlining it’s position, HURIWA argued that the supreme law states as follows;

“The composition of the government of the federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity, and also to command national loyalty….”

HURIWA submits that the physically challenged community is a strategic group that has suffered political alienation even when they form part of the larger federal demographic character of modern day Nigeria and indeed parade significant percentage of academically and morally sound citizens with requisite competences to join the national effort to achieve speedy transformational change of the Nigerian comatose economy.

The rights group which canvassed strongly the involvement of quality women in the running of strategic cabinet level positions under the incoming Muhammadu Buhari-led presidency said that as far back as year 2011 the World Bank statistically projected that women of Nigeria constitute nearly 49.36 percent of the entire populations.

HURIWA also stated that since the estimated population of the physically challenged Nigerians are over 20 million conservatively, it would be a gross human right breach for this critical section of the Nigerian populace to be sidelined in the composition of the federal cabinet of quality Nigerian decision and policy making body.

“From our extensive findings, we are aware that Nigeria is blessed with top quality intellectually vibrant women who can competently and professionally pilot the affairs of vital federal ministries and agencies as the abundance of empirical evidence has shown.

We therefore urge our newly elected President to write his name in gold as one of the respected liberators of Nigerian women and the physically challenged by equitably allotting high caliber cabinet level appointments to these groups of very important Nigerians”, HURIWA affirmed.

http://newsng.com

May 20, 2015  

GROUP WANTS DISABLED INCLUDED IN BUHARI’S CABINET By Okoro Chinedu

Lagos - The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has advocated for the inclusion of physically-challenged members of the community in the cabinet of the incoming administration of Muhammadu Buhari.

HURIWA said it believed that the continuous exclusion of the physically-challenged was tantamount to the gross violation of section
14(3) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria of 1999 (as amended).

“This persistent rights violations must be torpedoed now,” the organisation stated.

National Coordinator of HURIWA, Emmanuel Onwubiko, and the National Media Affairs Director, Zainab Yusuf, jointly signed the statement.

There an estimated 20 million disabled people in this country with 176 million people, the largest in the continent.

“From our extensive findings, we are aware that Nigeria is blessed with top quality intellectually vibrant women who can competently and professionally pilot the affairs of vital federal ministries and agencies as the abundance of empirical evidence has shown," HURIWA officials stated.

"We therefore urge our newly elected President to write his name in gold as one of the respected liberators of Nigerian women and the physically challenged by equitably allotting high caliber cabinet level appointments to these groups of very important Nigerians.”

www.news24.com.ng

May 20, 2015.

ACTIVISTS CONDEMN PARADE OF TWO-MONTH OLD BABY AS ROBBERY SUSPECT

The group dismissed the action as atrocious, primitive and a total breach of the fundamental human rights of a Nigerian child.

A Non-Governmental Organization, Human Rights Writers’ Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has strongly condemned the recent action of the Ogun State Police command of parading a two-month old baby, the mother and a teenager for alleged robbery committed by the father of the toddler.

The group also demanded that the Federal Government fish out the Police officers responsible for “this dastardly act that is totally unconstitutional, illegal and criminal and punish them administratively to serve as deterrent for future breach of the rights of the Nigerian children.”

The Police in Abeokuta recently paraded a two-month old baby, his mother, Fausat Adeosun, and his fifteen-year old brother over an alleged robbery committed by their father, Ismail Adeosun. The family was arrested after the suspect fled his home on arrival of the Police.

The Ogun State Police Commissioner, Ikemefuna Aduba, reportedly told the media that Mrs. Adeosun and her teenage son were arrested for allegedly “keeping a gun for her husband.” However, Mrs. Adeosun claimed that she was no longer married to the suspect and had consistently asked Mr. Adeosun to get rid of the gun. She added that one of the suspect’s brother had been in the process of removing the gun from their house at the time of their arrest.

The NGO, in a statement signed jointly by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, and National Media Affairs Director, Zainab Yusuf, faulted the primitive and unconstitutional practice of parading crime suspects before they are properly charged to the competent courts of law.

“Under no circumstances are the law enforcement officers allowed to parade a completely innocent two months old toddler whose only misfortune is that the child is a product of a very deprived and poor background,” the statement read. “What the police has succeeded in doing is to destroy the dignity of this innocent child which runs contrary to all known civilized policing standards and practices.”

The group then demanded the proper sanction for “this outrageous breach.”

“We totally condemn this evil practice of continuous public parade of crime suspects even before they are properly charged to competent courts of law. The operatives of the Nigeria Police must be made to comply to international human rights standards and practice by ensuring that the right crime suspects are arrested and scientific and forensic evidence generated by the police in an atmosphere of professional competence devoid of the usual obtaining of confessional statements by duress.

“The concern of the police should not be to engage in media celebration of their so-called gallantry but must focus on effective and efficient law enforcement mechanism which will culminate in the successful trials and conviction of all crime suspects,” it said.

www.nigeriapolicewatch.com 

 April 2, 2013 

THE ROT IN POLICE SERVICE COMMISSION EMMANUEL ONWUBIKO

The Police Service Commission, no doubt, was established to breathe some fresh air into the near-comatose Nigeria Police Force that is replete with divergent, but overwhelming evidence of corruption, indiscipline and lack of professionalism.

Try, as any die-hard propagandist would like discernible Nigerians to believe to the contrary, most members of the general public are bitter that the current Nigeria Police Force and its operatives have largely failed to deliver on their core constitutional mandate which is the enforcement of the Rule of law and the maintenance of law and order.

Going by the plethora of proved allegations of inefficiency, corruption, abuse of power and the near-total collapse of the mechanism of law enforcement in Nigeria, it is the opinion of the majority of Nigerians that the Police Service Commission has yet to deliver on this critical mandate. Of recent, there were accusations from a cross- section of aggrieved police operatives that the commission has failed consistently to follow merit, competence and seniority as the fundamental bedrock of determining who gets promoted but has rather promoted most beneficiaries based on primordial and pedestrian sentiments.

As an organisation that champions the issues around the human rights of Nigerians, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria is not satisfied with the disciplinary role being played by the Police Service Commission to ensure that indiscipline of all dimensions are confronted and minimised in the institution of the Police Force which constitutionally is the government agency that ought to have the closest proximity to members of the public.

Extra-legal execution of suspects in police detention centres across the country is a common thing which has seriously dented the image of the police and these cases of extra-judicial killings have brought international opprobrium against Nigeria from respected International Non–Governmental organisations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch of the USA and UK respectively.

The Police Service Commission seems to be engaged in ferocious turf war with other important agencies of government like the Federal Ministry of Police Affairs that is administratively charged with representing the collective interest of the Nigeria Police before the Executive Council of the Federation.

The other day in the full glare of the international community through the electronic media, the chairman of the Police Service Commission during a presentation of the reports of the presidential panel on police Reforms asked that the Federal Ministry of Police Affairs be scrapped. This statement was made in the presence of the serving police Affairs minister who is also a member of the presidential panel on police Reforms.

These local political bickering, intrigues and turf war are none of our business in the civil society community but we are worried that government officials charged with strategic duty of driving the process of achieving efficient national policing objectives are rather engaging in open confrontation even while the Nigeria Police Force as an institution has almost collapsed.

Few days back our officials got a series of complaints bordering on alleged violations of extant statutes meant to promote the highest professional ethical standards, transparency and accountability.

These allegations were made against the office of the chairman of the Police Service Commission and when we sought to know from one of those persons who brought this information why they have not bothered to take their complaints to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission or the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Offences Commission (ICPC), he bluntly told us that they don’t trust the chairman of the EFCC and the Director of Operations of ICPC who are officers under the direct control of the Police Service Commission. As can be seen from the establishment Act, the Police Service Commission has powers to appoint, promote, discipline, and dismiss all officers of the Nigeria Police Force except the Inspector General of Police.

It is a notorious fact that most serving police officers lobby intensely for promotions which may result in compromise.

How then can an officer under the direct disciplinary control of the Police Service Commission be seen to be investigating someone or persons clothed with supposed statutory functions over him/her? How independent and impartial can any investigation commence against members and/or chairman of the police commission by both anti-graft agencies be, given that the obvious lapses inherent in the establishment Act of the Police Service Commission which rightly or wrongly gives overwhelming powers to the police commission?

So when these complaints and allegations were brought to our attention with some photocopies of purported and/or alleged payment running to several millions allegedly authorised by the chairman, we decided to turn all of these into the offices of the National Security Adviser to the President, the secretary to the Government of the Federation and the leadership of the Federal House of Representatives to use their executive and legislative might to uncover the veracity or otherwise of these allegations with a view to determining if any alleged abuse of power/office and if any law prohibiting acts of corruption or lack of accountability can be established.

Section 15(5) of the constitution states clearly that, “The state shall abolish all corrupt practices and abuse of power”.

Onwubiko, Head, Human Rights Writers’ Association, wrote in via doziebiko@yahoo.com

DEC.  1, 2012 

HURIWA clears Imo Speaker of corruption, ritual killings allegations

The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has called on the National Human Rights Commission to restrain the leadership of the Youth for Human Rights Protection and Transparency Initiative (YARPTI) from what it called scandalizing and damaging of the credibility of the Speaker of the Imo state House of Assembly.

It claimed that YARPT had alleged that the Speaker, Mr. Benjamin Uwajumogu was corrupt and implicated in cases of ritual killings.

HURIWA dismissed the allegations as unfounded and lacking in concrete proof and urged the petitioners to wait for a determination of any subsisting investigations before concluding that the Speaker is corrupt and implicated in cases of ritual killings.

The group in a release signed by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Director of Media Affairs Miss Zainab Yusuf disclosed that, “from extensive investigation within the various security and judiciary institutions in Imo State, there emerged a clearer picture of the fact that the person of Mr. Uwajumogu may likely be a victim of political witch-hunt”, it said.
It stated that the underlying objective of the allegations was to deny him a possible ministerial slot should the incoming Nigerian President General Muhammadu Buhari decides to appoint him to represent Imo State in the next executive council of the federation.

HURIWA said: “The police authority in Imo State told us in black and white that there is no shred of evidence to support the sensational claims that the Imo State speaker is corrupt or is remotely connected to any established  case of  ritual killings in Imo State”. 

It called for caution while waiting for the determination by a competent law enforcement body and the judicial institution on the allegations. “As a human rights platform we believe in the principle of rule of law and fair hearing”, the group said.

It stated that the leader of the Imo State legislature actively supported the effort which culminated in the passage of the bill known as a law to prohibit baby racketeering through baby factory operations and every other arrangement connected with it.

“The Speaker is a good and qualitative Nigerian to be made a minister under the change mantra of the incoming All Progressives Congress – led federal government. Imo State witnessed rancor - free legislature/executive relationship in the last four years even as the state legislature never capitulated to the level of operating as puppets of the Imo State governor,” it said.

www.dailytrust.com.ng

24 May 2015