The leading civil Rights advocacy group – HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS
ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has condemned the reported gruesome
killings of nine soldiers by suspected armed bandits in Zamfara even as
the group reasserts her total rejection of the negotiations by Northern
governors with armed bandits in Zamfara, Katsina and Niger states.
HURIWA directly links the killings of soldiers by armed bandits to the
atmosphere of illegality, anarchy and impunity created by the
negotiations and decision to grant amnesty to armed mass killers by some
Northern state governors. The group said it was absolutely wrong to
permit a situation whereby armed freelance hoodlums are treated like
sacred cows which has now snowballed into the mindless slaughter of our
armed soldiers trained professionally with huge public and tax payers’
fund. The Rights group said the killings must never be swept under the
carpet.
Describing the negotiations and granting of amnesty to armed bandits as
an affront to the Nigerian constitution, the Rights group absolutely
condemns the killing of soldiers by armed bandits even as the Rights
group has tasked the Zamfara state governor and federal government to
arrest, prosecute and punish the killers of the soldiers.
“Negotiating with criminals under any guise by state governors is
tantamount to defecating openly on top of the Nigerian constitution and
the fact that the cocktails of coordinated mass killings by armed
bandits in parts of Zamfara state and other northern states have
continued unabated shows that it is foolhardy for elected officials to
fail to enforce relevant laws against terrorism and mass murders. HUMAN
RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA hereby calls on Nigerians of
goodwill to speak up in rejection of the institutionalization of
impunity and official recklessness exhibited in the ongoing negotiations
with armed bandits by northern governors”.
“We demand that the Zamfara state government be compelled to pay #100
million compensation each to all the soldiers killed by armed bandits in
Zamfara state.”
HURIWA recalled that armed bandits killed nine soldiers in an attack
last weekend in an area of northwest Nigeria reportedly wracked by
cattle rustling and kidnappings.
HURIWA citing available reports stated that dozens of gunmen on
motorcycles last weekend stormed a military post in the remote village
of Sunke in Zamfara state and opened fire, the sources said maintaining
that “We lost nine soldiers,” a senior military officer in the state
capital Gusau, told AFP.
HURIWA recalled that residents said the bandits attacked the troops to
avenge the killing of their comrades after the military raided their
camps in a nearby forest. The incident happened despite an existing
truce between the gangs and the regional government, they said even as
Sunke, which lies 140 kilometers (85 miles) from the regional capital
Gusau, is a notorious enclave for armed gangs who are camped out in the
surrounding forest.
Relatedly, HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has
thrown its weight behind the just launched nationwide military exercises
by the Nigerian Army just as the Rights group urged Nigerians to support
the Nigerian Army to battle the upsurge in terrorism and criminality and
by the same token, the Rights group has urged the military hierarchy to
adhere strictly to human rights provisions as enshrined in chapter four
of the Nigerian constitution.
“We are hopeful that the chief of Army staff lieutenant General Tukur
Yusuf Buratai who has clearly demonstrated his disdain for violations of
human rights will ensure the respect of the human rights of Nigerians.”
HURIWA has disclosed that it will be on ground in the South East of
Nigeria to observe the enforcement and implementation of the military
exercises just as it appealed for public support for the Army to rid the
South East of Nigeria of kidnappers and armed hoodlums threatening the
peace and stability of the region.