Stop Incessant Massacre In Zamfara, Group Urges FG

Posted by Eric Ojo Featured, Latest Headlines, News Across Nigeria, News From The State Tuesday, June 15th, 2021

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – A frontline Civil Right Advocacy Group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has urged the Federal Government to deploy massive security to Zamfara State and halt the ongoing massacre of innocent citizens by armed bandits.

On June 9, 2021 gunmen kidnapped about 60 women from some villages for Zamfara state. On the 12th of June, it was also reported that armed assailants have killed 53 people in northwest Nigeria’s Zamfara state, according to police and local residents, the latest violence to hit the restive region.

There has been series of deadly attacks on a number of villages across the state in the last few months which resulted in the death of so many victims.

HURIWA decried the continuous massacre of rural dwellers in Zamfara in the last one week, calling it an obvious act of genocide.

In a statement signed by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director, Miss Zainab Yusuf and made available to newsmen, the association said the Federal Government should as a matter of urgency, declare armed bandits operating in the North Western part of Nigeria as terrorists and treat them as same.

The association added that it is not enough to always express shock and condemnation over killings but that the government must deal decisively with the so-called bandits operating in Zamfara and other parts of the country.

“We also want the FG to designate the so-called bandits as terrorists and treat them so. We have resolved to write to the International Criminal Court in The Hague Netherlands to send them information on these atrocities going on in Zamfara which the President of Nigeria doesn’t seem to want to checkmate or curbed”, the group said.

They also asked for a constitution of a high powered judicial commission of inquiry to ascertain if what has been going on in Zamfara State is a targeted genocidal attacks seeking to wipe off the mainly Hausa indigenous population by alleged armed Fulani militia members.

“We at HURIWA have continued to monitor the situation in Zamfara in the last one year and in the last one week where over ninety villagers were reported to have been gruesomely massacred between Thursday and Saturday lasts week by terrorist suspected to be armed bandits in Kadawa village of Zurmi Local Government Area of the State, while many others were severely wounded.

“We are disturbed that an obvious act of genocide is being handled with kids gloves. The fact which is notorious is that it would appear that these armed militants who are mostly Fulani sharing same ethnicity with President Muhammadu Buhari are been pampered and sadly all the heads of the security architectures in the internal security sector are Ethnic Fulanis”, they further stated.

The group regretted that the President, who swore an oath to defend the lives and property of Nigerians which in any event is the primary duty of government in accordance with constitutional stipulation, has watched in bemusement whilst citizens are slaughtered like chickens.

The association also expressed dissatisfaction over the call from the Governor of Zamfara on the citizens of the state to defend themselves against bandits, that is an indication that the instruments of state can no longer guarantee their safety and a clear sign of a failed state.

HURIWA equally noted that for two years the National Assembly has increasingly become weaker and incapable of using the instruments of oversight responsibility to compel the executive arm of government to defend Nigerians or make move to slam President Muhammadu Buhari with impeachment threats.

“The Senate President has become like a ‘pet dog’ of the executive arm of government and has abandoned his watchdog role ascribed to the National legislature by the Grundnorm. Sadly, the Speaker has also become a stooge of President Muhammadu Buhari who is totally disconnected from the constant ordeals confronting millions of Nigerians just as the cocktails of killings by organised criminal gangs do not disturb or worry their consciences.

“Now amidst the cacophony of violence and killings carried out and orchestrated by armed non state actors, the National Assembly has gone on recess and are not bothered about the bad existential situations in all parts of the Federal Republic of Nigeria”, the group stressed.