NIGERIA (HURIWA) has asked President Muhammadu Buhari to comply with
clearly established constitutional norms and allow for unfettered
enjoyments of the constitutionally safeguarded freedoms.
HURIWA has also carpeted the Secretary General of the United Nations Mr.
Antonio Guteres for aiding and abetting the rise of incipient tyranny in
Nigeria and conferring global status on the Nigerian Government that
currently keeps over a dozen political prisoners through a combination
of reward system such as the appointment of Muhamadu Buhari’s
Environment minister Mrs Amina Mohammed as Deputy Secretary General and
another Northern Nigerian appointee of President Muhammadu Buhari as
President of the United Nations General Assembly Professor Muhammad
Bande.
The pro-democracy group (HURIWA) also reminded president Buhari that
since his government has produced the president of the United Nations
General Assembly (UNGA) in the person of professor Tijani Muhammad-Bande
which is a phenomenal momentum in the life of the administration, it
would be ironical that his government has become so repressive and
intolerant of opposition views and has made the country a police state
even amidst widespread insecurity and professional misconduct by the
police. “Nigeria has never been this bad with a General collapse of law
enforcement by the police and an unprecedented rise in arbitrary arrests
and detention. We are a police state whose police operatives are grossly
incompetent to be able to go after the criminals making life intolerable
for millions of Nigerians and at the same time the police and the sister
security service (DSS) have become willing tools in the hands of the
Abuja tyrant who has since unleashed a regime of brutal CLAMPDOWN on
civil activists and journalists brandishing choreographed charges that
lack justification “.
“It is indeed a big irony that whilst Nigeria is becoming a police state
due to the execution of well-coordinated attacks on pro-democracy
activists and journalists using the security forces of Department of
State Services (DSS) and a brutal but inefficient police force, the same
administration is at the same time credited with reaching a global
milestone in the specific case of a diplomatic achievement of having an
appointee of the repressive and brutal regime ascending the prestigious
seat of the presidency of the United Nations General Assembly for a
whooping one year. It is either that the United Nation system is
tolerant of dictatorship or the hierarchy of the United Nations is
dangerously incompetent and uninformed about the stark realities of
excruciating pains systematically inflicted by the current federal
government on a massive scale targeting millions of Nigerians”.
In a media statement by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel
Onwubiko, the Rights group stated that there is no evidence anywhere in
Nigeria to show that Nigeria is in a constitutional democracy.
“Huriwa wonders how a government that is produced through the ballots,
will so regress to a level that free speech is criminalized and
journalists and activists are hounded and thrown into detention for a
long period of time even as the nation’s judiciary has capitulated to
the coordinated firepower of repression using security forces and
anti-corruption agencies”.
HURIWA recalled that a Nigerian journalist, Agba Jalingo, has been in
police detention for over a week, over a report about an alleged
diversion of N500 million by the Cross River governor, which he authored
for which the Federal government has allowed the across Rivers State
governor to deploy Federally funded security forces to arrest, detain
and now institute a charge of treason.
HURIWA recalled that Jalingo, who is the publisher of CrossRiverWatch,
a Cross River State-based newspaper, was arrested and detained over a
petition by the government’s owned microfinance bank following the
report in his newspaper which has relentlessly criticised Ben Ayade, the
state governor.
HURIWA recalled that the journalist who was arrested in Lagos and
driven by road to Calabar, the capital city of the Cross River State,
had sued the police over his arrest and detention, which he said were
illegal and a breach of his fundamental human rights. He is asking a
court to order the police to pay him N150 million as damages for the
manner he was allegedly maltreated.
But while a judge is yet to hear Mr. Jalingo’s fundamental human rights
case, the police have instituted a four-count charge of treasonable
felony, terrorism, cultism, and the disturbance of public peace on the
journalist.
The charges which were filled at the Federal High Court in Calabar, also
indicated that Mr. Jalingo was working with the #RevolutionNow movement
of the detained publisher of Sahara Reporters, Omoyele Sowore, to
destabilize the government and “undemocratically” force the government
of Mr. Ayade to end through violent means.
HURIWA believes that the use of the Federal might to deal with the
Journalist goes to confirm that there is indeed a well calculated agenda
unfolding whose objective is to institute full blown tyranny at every
levels of government and to curtail the enjoyment of constitutional
freedoms.
HURIWA also accused the Federal government of crude vendetta against the
publisher of Saharareporters.com going by the fact that the ruling All
Progressives Congress (APC) accused Mr Sowore, a former presidential
candidate, of planning to forcibly topple the government through his
#RevolutionNow protest. Mr. Sowore who was arrested by the State
Security Security (SSS) is being held on court-ordered extended
detention for 45 days.
HURIWA recalled that the Department of State Services (DSS) says it
suspected that Omoyele Sowore, a candidate in Nigeria’s last
presidential election wanted to work with the Indigenous People of
Biafra (IPOB) and the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) to topple the
government of President Muhammadu Buhari.
HURIWA recalled that the federal government proscribtion of both IPOB
and Islamic Movement of Nigeria as terrorist organizations shows that
Constitutional democracy is under intensive attacks by elements embedded
in the Federal government. The Rights group said it was also
inconceivable that the Court agreed due to fear to grant indefinite
detention order against Omoyele SOWORE even when the DSS said in an
affidavit attached to its counter-argument against the application of
Sowore challenging his detention that they have PROOFS of a plot by the
activist to topple government just as the Rights group expressed shock
that the judge refused the bail application even when under the
constitution an accused person is assumed innocent until a contrary
determination is reached through a court of law.
The affidavit read: “The respondent/applicant (Sowore) planned to
violently change the government through the hashtag RevolutionNow.
HURIWA has therefore for the umpteenth time demanded the immediate
release of all the political prisoners by the Federal government.