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Tag: HURIWA

  • Under your watch Kaduna has become a killing field for marauders – HURIWA blasts El-Rufai

    Under your watch Kaduna has become a killing field for marauders – HURIWA blasts El-Rufai

     

    Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, on Sunday, slammed Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State over the killing of residents by Fulani bandits and terrorists.

    HURIWA’s National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, in a statement, lamented that Kaduna has become a killing field for marauders under El-Rufai’s watch while the governor has failed woefully as the chief security officer of the state with the cardinal responsibility to protect lives and property.

    The group also expressed stark dissatisfaction that despite the unprecedented and callous murder of residents of the state by vicious, AK-47-wielding non-state actors, especially in Southern Kaduna, the El-Rufai government and security agencies have failed to arrest or prosecute any suspect to logical conclusion.

    HURIWA described as shocking, the data released by the state government on Friday that 446 people were killed by bandits and terrorists from April to September 2022 while 985 persons were kidnapped during the period under review across the state.

    Commenting, HURIWA’s Onwubiko said, “The massacre that has been going on in Kaduna under Governor Nasir El-Rufai is condemnable and shows crass failure of the governor who is supposed to be the chief security officer of the state charged with the duty to protect lives and property.

    “However, the body language of the governor continues to enable the guillotine of residents of the state, particularly in Southern Kaduna which has been the most hit victim of terrorism and banditry since El-Rufai became governor.

    “For instance, in 2021, the state government said a total number of 1,192 people were killed by bandits and 3,348 abducted across Kaduna. In 2020, at least 937 people were killed by bandits and terrorists, the state government reported.

    “Aside that these figures must have been doctored and reduced, yet the stark reality in Kaduna confronts any sane person. One thing is, however, certain: Kaduna is a place of sorrow, tears and blood as marauders with religious and genocidal agenda continue to hide under communal clashes to maul innocent Christians in Southern Kaduna.

    “The mass graves dug under El-Rufai alone will send anyone into pains and anguish. How terrorists can have a field’s day in the state despite the heavy military presence is still unfathomable. For starters, Kaduna has no fewer than six military formations including Jaji Military Cantonment; 1 Mech.

    “Division Headquarters, Nigerian Army, Kaduna; New Barracks, otherwise known as ‘Kotoko’ Barracks; Old Site of the Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna; Kalanpazi Barracks (Artillery Regiment). But the military have allegedly turned blind eyes to the despicable atrocities of terrorists due to alleged tribal sentiments. Infact recently, Gov. Elruffai had boasted of controlling the police, the Army and the DSS and that he can order for the arrest of whomsoever he wishes in Kaduna State.

    “So how come that terrorists are having field days in his State and yet this ‘bigman’ who commands the ‘armed forces’ located in his State has allowed these mass killings to thrive?

    “El-Rufai is a big accidental administration in Kaduna and the people are worst off for bringing in the most allegedly divisive bigot as governor. Under him, non-state actors who are mostly of same ethno-religious affiliations with the governor feel emboldened to kill Southern Kaduna Christians at will and occupy their lands and the government is doing nothing to bring these killers to justice or take justice to them.

    “History will never be kind to oppressors because for whatever has a beginning under the Sun must cime to an end certainly and everyone will get the full dish of what he has prepared for others !”

  • Kyari claims significant reduction in oil theft as group calls for probe

    Kyari claims significant reduction in oil theft as group calls for probe

    The Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL) Mele Kyari has claimed that the scale of oil theft in the Niger Delta, following the discovery of several illegal pipes, had significantly reduced.

    Kyari made the claim during his address on the second day of the PENGASSAN Energy and Labour Summit, on Tuesday in Abuja.

    According to him, cooperation with security agencies has significantly reduced oil theft and the country would have access to more crude and revenue, in the coming weeks.

    The new assertion made by the NNPCL’s boss comes barely two weeks after he told the Senate’s joint committees on Gas and Petroleum (Upstream and Downstream) that a reality test showed the country was losing up to 600 barrels of crude per day (bpd).

    “As a result of oil theft, Nigeria loses about 600,000 barrels per day, which is not healthy for the nation’s economy, and in particular, the legal operators in the field, which had led to a close down of some of their operational facilities,” Kyari had said.

    He also disclosed that oil theft in the country had been going on for over 22 years, but had assumed an unprecedented dimension and rate in recent times, adding that aerial surveillance carried out by the Corporation of the affected areas revealed that “the economic saboteurs carrying out their activities unchallenged and unperturbed”.

    Meanwhile, authorities say 395 illegal refineries have been deactivated, 49 trucks seized and 274 reservoirs and 1,561 metal tanks destroyed so far.

    A civil rights advocacy group, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has alleged that there was a deliberate attempt to cover up the involvement of military personnel in oil theft in the Niger Delta region.

    HURIWA’s National Coordinator Emmanuel Onwubiko, corroborating the position of Human Rights Lawyer Femi Falana, described “as sacrilegious, contemptible and scandalous”, the justification by the military, of the destruction of a vessel loaded with stolen crude oil in the Niger Delta area and has called for a probe.

    The vessel with registration number L85 B9.50, was arrested two Thursdays ago, by a combined team from the Nigerian Navy and a private pipeline surveillance team, Tantita Security Services led by a former militant leader, Government Ekpemepulo, popularly known as Tompolo.

    The vessel was apprehended close to Escravos in Warri South West Local government area of Delta state with seven crew members onboard and about 600 cubic metres of illegally lifted crude oil.

    HURIWA called for the constitution of a judicial panel of inquiry on the oil bunkering vessel after the military claimed that the swift destruction was in line with the “rules of engagements”.

    Nigeria is also facing gas and revenue shortages as the Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Limited declared force majeure on its 22 million tons per annum (mtpa) processing plant due to widespread flooding that has disrupted gas supply to the company.

    “The notice by the gas suppliers was a result of high floodwater levels in their operational areas, leading to a shut-in of gas production which has caused significant disruption of gas supply to NLNG,” NLNG’s General Manager, External Relations and Sustainable Development Andy Odeh said.

    He added that NLNG was determining the extent of the disruption in order to mitigate its impact on the economy.

  • Group bombs Buhari, Osinbajo for leaving Nigeria same time

    Group bombs Buhari, Osinbajo for leaving Nigeria same time

     

    …says Nigeria has been under auto-pilot since 2015

    President Muhammadu Buhari and his vice, Yemi Osinbajo have been carpeted for abandoning statecraft same time while Nigeria wallows in poverty and high inflation.

    Buhari departs Abuja for New York, United States, for ten days to attend the annual meeting of global leaders, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA77) at the same time the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo is attending Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral in the United Kingdom, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has described their combined absence as disconcerting.

    According to HURIWA, this shows a nation on autopilot since 2015.

    TheNewsGuru com, (TNG) reports HURIWA also stated that the decision of the President and the Vice President to both depart the shores of the country to fritter away resources at a time of hyperinflation and a worrying state of insecurity shows that the current administration does not care about the well-being and welfare of the populace but the duo are simply after satisfying their insatiable tastes for globetrotting and epicurean tendencies.

    A statement from the presidency disclosed that Buhari, among many other activities, will take his turn to deliver an address on the second day of the General Debates on Wednesday, September 21 while Osinbajo joins other world leaders at the funeral service scheduled to hold at Westminster Abbey. Ahead of the service.

    HURIWA carpeted President Buhari for jetting out of the shores of the nation at about the same time as his deputy to attend to ceremonial events that won’t positively or constructively contribute any solution to the economic and security challenges facing Nigeria.

    The group pointed out that the Nigerian constitution did not envisage a situation such as this when both leaders will abdicate their duties for some days to attend to ceremonial events.

    The rights group emphasized that the Constitution expected that either the President or his Vice must be on ground in Nigeria.

    HURIWA stated that if the President loved his nation so much more than pursuing his passion for globetrotting, he could have asked the Vice President to stay back in Nigeria whilst the President attends the funeral ceremonial event for the departed Queen of England and then fly to the United States of America to attend the General Assembly of the United Nations.

    HURIWA said: “We are beginning to believe that President Muhammadu Buhari is scared of joining other invitees to the Queen’s funeral in a bus ride to the venue except the President of the USA who is allowed to ride in his presidential suv cars but all other World leaders are restricted to the use of buses.

    “There is no reason both the President and his Vice will disappear from Nigeria at the same time if not that from the word go, they haven’t been in the right frame of minds to provide quality leadership but have all these while governed Nigeria in an autopilot way which is why armed non state actors are causing unprecedented commotion and bloody insecurity all across the Country and inflation has ballooned out of control at over 20 percent”.

  • Shiroro Massacre: Fire Service Chiefs, DSS DG, IGP, NSA now — HURIWA tells Buhari

    Civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has advised President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately fire all his military service chiefs, the Director General of the Department of State Services, the Inspector-General of Police and National Security Adviser for gross dereliction and violation of rules of engagement.

    TheNewsGuru.com, (TNG) reports this was contained in a statement on Friday declaring that “President Muhammadu Buhari ought to stop his frequent lamentations over his failings in the area of security because that is not why he was elected but to take immediate and comprehensive measures to dismiss any or all of his service chiefs now since they have manifested through their actions and inactions that they have not got what it takes to defeat terrorists just as the security Chiefs most of whom are Muslim Northerners are behaving like they are aiding and abetting the successes recorded so far by Islamic terrorists and the Fulani terrorists.”

    HURIWA reacted against the backdrop of the massacre if soldiers in Shiroro Dan a strategic national asset by Boko Haram terrorists, accusing the President “of abandoning his duty to gallivanting and globetrot meaningless over the world.”

    According to reports, at least 43 people, including 30 soldiers and seven mobile police personnel and civilians were killed when the armed men stormed the Gold mining site. They also abducted several Chinese nationals.

    HURIWA however said “the Army should cover her face in shame that it is unable to defend the territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Nigeria even when the defence sector collects the giant allocations every year from the federally released annual budgets.” It wondered why “despite the fact that the government made claims of buying equipment from all over the world, the Islamists are being allowed to crush a trained and professional Army such as the Nigerian Army.”

    The rights group said it is now certain that some saboteurs within the Army may be the moles selling the country out to Jihadists. It therefore called for the sack of all the service chiefs, asking Nigerians “not to die in silence but to stage protests to demand action from President Muhammadu Buhari to stop the widening insecurity in Nigeria.”

    HURIWA said it is unfortunate that “Nigerians are letting the government abandon its statutory duty to the citizens but failing to actively protest the heightened state of insecurity in the Country and demand the dismissal of compromised security Chiefs and the National Security Adviser who has absolutely nothing to offer.”

  • Atiku, Omokri condemn attack on Abuja-Kaduna train, as HURIWA calls for Gumi’s arrest

    Atiku, Omokri condemn attack on Abuja-Kaduna train, as HURIWA calls for Gumi’s arrest

    Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, a former aide to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, Reno Omokri, have condemned the second consecutive attack on the Abuja-Kaduna train, just as HURIWA calls for arrest of Sheikh Gumi.

     

    In a statement on Wednesday, Atiku expressed sadness over the news of fatalities during the Monday night ambush.

     

    He noted that the audacity of a second offensive by terrorists raises serious concerns.

     

    “We are now getting to know the extent of the loss of human lives and those missing in the Monday attack on the same route.”

     

    Omokri, on his part, berated Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State and former Education Minister, Oby Ezekwesili, over the bandits attacks in the state.

     

    Omokri described El-Rufai and Ezekwesili’s calmness following the attacks at the Kaduna International Airport and Kaduna-Abuja train as a form of terrorism.

     

    In a tweet, the former presidential aide said the northern part of the country would be “boiling” if both attacks happened during Jonathan’s administration.

     

    According to Omokri, El-Rufai and Ezekwesili would have been on the streets protesting if the attacks happened during Jonathan’s era.

    “Northern Nigeria would be boiling and @elrufai and @ObyEzeks would be dancing naked in the street, if Jonathan was President when the Abuja-Kaduna train was bombed and terrorists took over Kaduna airport. But they are all calm. Hypocrisy is also a form of terrorism!” Omokri asserted.

     

    Recall that on Saturday, bandits had attacked the Kaduna International Airport but were repelled by security agencies.

     

    A few days later, bandits attacked a Kaduna-bound train.

     

    Meanwhile, HURIWA has called on the Federal Government to arrest controversial Sheikh Abubakar Gumi.

     

    Sheikh Gumi is an influential Islamic cleric who had persistently defended the bandits and other marauders in Northern Nigeria.

     

    HURIWA, in a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, argued that Sheikh Gumi has been outspoken as a “bandits’ sympathiser” over the years including demanding blanket amnesty for daredevil bandits and venturing into the forests of Zamfara, Katsina, and Niger State to hold discussion with the dreaded bandits turning the North-West zone to another place of sorrow, tears and blood.

     

    The rights group also said it was not enough for the regime of President Muhammadu Buhari to declare bandits as terrorists as gazetted by the Federal Government in January 2022 following the order of Justice Taiwo Taiwo of the Federal High Court in Abuja.

     

    Rather, the group said the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), should go further and also gazette “bandits’ sympathisers” like Gumi as terrorists sympathisers.

     

    “Why did the Federal Government capture Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and slammed a blanket ban on his Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) only for pouring invective against the person of Buhari from his London United Kingdom base but the same government through the National Security Adviser to the President Major General Babagana Monguno even openly endorsed the clandestine meetings of terrorists with Sheikh Abubakar Gumi of Kaduna?” HURIWA queried.

     

    “This is double standards and this is the reason why there is so much injustices all around this administration. Why is the government pretending like it never heard or read on the media when Sheikh Gumi said there will be war if the then bandits are declared as terrorists and that he will no longer interface with them after the declaration and now that the war foretold has started and innocent blood is being spilled.

     

    “Why is the government not inviting Sheikh Gumi to say more than he knows about these terrorists he so much defended and even compared them to the Niger Delta resource control agitators? Why is Gumi bigger than the law but Mazi Nnamdi Kanu has been languishing in DSS underground cell and allegedly undergoing torture?” The human rights advocacy group demanded answers.”

  • HURIWA predicts more deliberate infernos before handing over to new administration

    HURIWA predicts more deliberate infernos before handing over to new administration

    The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has predicted that with just few months to expected handing over to another elected federal administration, it is expected that more deliberate infernos may occur so as to hide evidence to trace any financial malfeasance being committed now.

    In a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, the group described the fire that gutted parts of the Federal Ministry of Finance as “Government Magic” which may be a sinister attempt to conceal some secrets regarding massive looting of public fund.

    HURIWA alleged that the Federal Ministry of Finance lacks transparency and accountability in the handling of public finances, reminding Nigerians that there are lots of questions bordering on “lack of transparency that are yet to be satisfactorily answered by officials of the Finance ministry including the alleged expenditure of over N3 billion without budgetary approval and appropriation”.

    The rights group said it is unimaginable that such a strategic ministry, housing sensitive financial transactional documents, can be so criminally set ablaze and Nigerians are being fed with “nebulous and laughable explanation on the cause of the fire incident.”

    The rights group called for vigilance by Nigerians alleging that the heads of security agencies may have been compromised.

    HURIWA regretted that Nigerians have now got to a stage whereby nobody cares any longer whether public and civil servants burn all federal institutions down because for all of those fire incidents, Nigerians did not manifest any collective sense of indignation.

    It can be recalled that fire had gutted part of a building at the Federal Ministry of Finance located in the Central Business District, Abuja. Black smoke was seen billowing from a part of the building, following the fire outbreak on Wednesday morning.

    While advocating independent forensic investigations of all the recent fires in public institutions, HURIWA said the fire outbreak at the Finance ministry is just the latest of many that have affected government offices in Abuja.

  • It’s ethnic profiling to arrest Chiwetalu while Gumi continues campaign for bandits- HURIWA slams DSS

    It’s ethnic profiling to arrest Chiwetalu while Gumi continues campaign for bandits- HURIWA slams DSS

    Advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association Of Nigeria, has slammed the Department of State Services and the Nigerian Army over the arrest and detention of popular Nollywood actor, Chiwetalu Agu.

    The group described as injustice the arrest of the actor for wearing ‘Biafran colours’, while controversial Islamic cleric, Ahmad Gumi, roams freely with cruel bandits.

    TheNewsGuru recalls that soldiers on Thursday had detained the actor around Upper Iweka Bridge in Onitsha for wearing an outfit with Biafra inscriptions.

    In a viral video, Agu had denied the claims, saying his attire was a civil dress with an image of a rising sun and not Biafra.

    The military later released the actor on Friday and handed him over the DSS.

    DSS Spokesman, Peter Afunanya, who confirmed that Agu is in the custody of the secret police, said the law would take its full course.

    However, reacting its statement titled, Chiwetalu Agu: HURIWA accuses military, DSS of ethnic profiling’, the group said, “The military and the DSS have clearly shown their inclinations towards ethnic profiling because on more than one occasion the Kaduna-based Islamic cleric Sheikh Ahmad Gumi was seen holding nocturnal meetings with the terrorists who kidnapped many school children and held them hostage for months in the forests but despite the obvious evidence that the said Ahmad Gumi made many television and newspaper appearances and granted extensive interviews including the one that he accused the military of helping to weaponise terrorists in the North-West, there was never any attempt on the part of the DSS or Army to invite him or arrest him for these treasonous acts of fraternizing and colluding with terrorists.

    “But the Igbo Actor Chiwetalu Agu wore just a cloth with the flag of the defunct Biafra Republic which is not unlawful but the Army tortured him and thereafter handed him over to the DSS and the DSS is now saying that justice would be done and we ask, which justice? This is pure ethnic profiling and vendetta which is unconstitutional.”

    The statement signed by HURIWA National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, stated further, “We demand the immediate release of Mr Chinwetalu Agu by the DSS or they charge him to court so the world will see how low the country Nigeria has degenerated in the practice of apartheid policies by the current administration that releases and reintegrate Boko Haram Islamic terrorists.”