By 
By Tayo ABIOLA
The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has described the Bokkos and Barkin Ladi Local Government Areas massacre on the Plateau as an intolerable crime.
The National Coordinator of HURIWA, Emmanuel Onwubiko, subsequently, called for the immediate overhauling of the security institutions, alleging that the present heads of the security agencies were not committed to safeguard lives and property of the citizens of the country.
The group wondered how the President and the service chiefs were busy feasting in their different homes under the guise of celebrating the Christmas holiday whereas citizens were exposed to dangerous attacks by armed terrorists wielding deadly military grade weapons.
It noted that this government lacks the needed political will to conquer terrorists, saying the government has failed to name and shame identified sponsors of terrorists as it promised.
“What is the primary duty of government constitutionally?
“The primary legal obligations of government in accordance with the Grund Norm of Nigeria is the preservation of the sanctity of lives of Nigerians, prevent killings of citizens and the destructions of their property and assets by armed non state actors. Why then is the President Tinubu unwilling to dismiss his non-performing security service chiefs and the DG of DSS who has overstayed his retirement time?
“It is the most shameful show of incompetence on the part of the Commander-in-Chief and his bunch of appointees holding command and ministerial positions linked to the protection of national security, to stand by even as many as 113 persons have been confirmed killed,” HURIWA said.
HURIWA described the continuous killings by the so-called unknown gunmen in the Southeast, and the persistent pogroms in Benue, Taraba and Plateau states “carefully choreographed by Fulani irredentists and terrorists,” as unforgivable crimes against humanity.
“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu must arrest the killers and make them to face stiff and swift justice or the President should get ready to be dragged to the International criminal court in the Hague, Netherlands, for permitting heinous crimes against humanity under his government,” the group said.
HURIWA, which stated that killings were also the manifestations of the lack of any kind of coordinated approach by the armed forces of Nigeria, the police and the DSS to viciously confront the terrorists unleashing mass killings across Nigeria, asked the President “to sack all the service chiefs and the IGP to make way for fresh minds and fresh hands with the requisite competences and patriotism to finish off these terrorists.”
The rights group also said: “It is so glaring that law and order has collapsed in substantial parts of Nigeria and given way to the regime of terrorists.”
It condemned the fact that no fewer than three worshippers were reportedly killed by unknown gunmen who invaded Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, Nkweagu, in Abakaliki Local Council of Ebonyi State.
“HURIWA is calling on the President, who is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of Nigeria, to take responsibility for this massive scale of failures by the armed forces and then take concrete steps to re-jig the architectural formation of Nigeria’s security services by picking new sets of competent heads to coordinate the attacks against terrorists.
President Tinubu shouldn’t wait for the country to collapse totally before he takea “action now to stop Nigeria from the progressive drift to the abyss and precipice of total lawlessness, anarchy and doom,” the group added.
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