A pro-democracy group, Human
Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has condemned the Inspector
General of police for branding armed bandits in the North as ‘freedom
fighters.’
HURIWA, while also condemning the
decision by some northern governors of Katsina, Zamfara and Sokoto States to
negotiate with armed Fulani bandits said the bandits are responsible for hundreds
of deaths and the destruction of property in the states.
The rights group accused the
Inspector General of Police, Alhaji Mohammed Adamu of choosing to ‘wine and
dine’ with armed bandits rather than wielding the big stick against the lawless
mass murders in the North West of Nigeria.
In a media statement signed by
the National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media
Affairs Director, Miss. Zainab Yusuf, it 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.”
The statement reads, “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”.
”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.
”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. therefore, demand 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”.
Similarly, the right group also
described the budget of N100 billion proposed for the implementation of the
National Livestock Transformation Plan as an ‘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 said 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
efforts to smuggle from the backdoor the RUGA SETTLEMENT PROGRAMME for Fulanis
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 programmed and added that the programmed remained voluntary and
would accommodate only states that expressed participation interest”.
HURIWA, 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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