Date Published: 06/24/09

HURIWA lauds FG's Amnesty to Militants

HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS’ ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA, HURIWA, a development focused and Democracy inclined non-Governmental organization has Yesterday applauded the Federal Government’s elaborate proposal to grant total amnesty to all armed militants in the oil rich but grossly underdeveloped Niger Delta region provided the militants lay down their arms and ammunitions even as it challenged the Federal Government to show commitment in the implementation of the terms of the amnesty to avoid a reoccurrence of the orgy of violence in the Niger Delta.

The Rights group also commended President Umaru Musa Yar’adua for so far showing his determination to resolve the ongoing violence in the Niger Delta but advised the President to call off the military action in the oil producing communities to allow for full take off of the amnesty regime for the militants.

In a media release, HURIWA through its National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko who challenged the Federal Government to publish the White Paper on the Ledum Mittee-led Presidential technical committee on the Niger Delta and to implement the key recommendations that will radically transform the neglected oil producing areas through the recently created Federal ministry of Niger Delta and the Niger Delta Development Commission [NDDC], also challenged all the agencies of Government in the oil producing areas to provide capacity training to the hundreds of thousands of jobless Youths in the oil producing communities and to create the enabling environment for employment opportunities to thrive because idle minds are the devil’s workshops.

President Umaru Musa Yar’adua had last week promised to unveil the details of the Federal Government’s amnesty to repentant militants after a meeting of the National Council of State Thursday June 25 th 2009 even as the President had promised to receive the first major militant leader to accept the Federal Government’s amnesty proposal. The President was reacting to the pledge by Ateke Tom, a high profile militant kingpin in the Niger Delta that he will abandon armed struggle and embrace peace if the Federal Government’s amnesty to the militants is genuine.

HURIWA charged the Federal Government to sincerely implement the terms of the amnesty to the latter even as it appealed to all armed militants including the dreaded Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta [MEND] to embrace the amnesty by the current administration and to abandon armed struggle because according to it, peaceful, constructive and transparent negotiations are the panaceas to the restiveness in the Niger Delta and that development can only take place in an atmosphere of peace. The Rights Group called on the Federal Government to end the trial of Henry Okah in the Federal High Court for treason in order to encourage all segments of the armed militants to submit to the terms of the Federal Government’s amnesty.

On the military operations in the Niger Delta by the joint task Force of the Nigerian military, HURIWA called on the United Nations to institute independent probe of the series of allegations of extra legal executions of unarmed civilians allegedly perpetrated by the operatives of the Nigerian military so that all the persons guilty of the use of torture and that engaged in unlawful and extra judicial killings are brought before the law to face the consequences because if no action is taken, then impunity would have succeeded.

HURIWA stated; ‘’The United Nations must intervene in this matter by insisting that the Federal Government of Nigeria should work with it and other independent minded civil society groups in Nigeria to probe all allegations of extra judicial killings especially the killing in the most gruesome way of the two fishermen brothers in the Niger Delta allegedly by some armed soldiers. Since the Nigerian Army has denied knowledge of the killers of these two citizens of Nigeria who were definitely caught up in the line of duty by the JTF, the best way to find out the murderers is for the United Nations and other independent civil society groups in the country to initiate dispassionate investigation of all the cases of extra judicial executions so that all the indicted persons should be made to face the full wrath of the law because anything contrary would amount to wilful cover up and the promotion of impunity in Nigeria’’.