A pro-democracy and non-governmental organisation, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has condemned the appointment of Yusuf Magaji Bichi as the substantive Director-General of the Department of State Security, DSS by President Muhammadu Buhari.
HURIWA lamented that Buhari had in recent times violated “section 14 (3) of the supreme law and is a precursor to the well-founded plots to rig the 2019 elections in favour of the incumbent who is Fulani from Katsina State.”
In a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and its National Media Affairs Director, Miss Zainab Yusuf, the body also condemned Buhari’s persistent violations of the constitutionally guaranteed federal character principle as enshrined in section 14 (3) of the 1999 constitution (as amended).
The Rights group said the “recent gale of appointments into the Department of State Services (DSS) and the Security Minting and Printing Press in which persons of Hausa/Fulani Muslim extraction were made violates section 14 (3) of the supreme law and is a precursor to the well-founded plots to rig the 2019 elections in favour of the incumbent who is Fulani from Katsina State. “
HURIWA condemned what it termed the “rising trend of nepotism and sectionslism even in the building of strategic federal government funded infrastructures like Railways; Transportation University and dams in only Katsina state which is discriminatory against the rest of Nigeria and amounts to a constitutional breach.”
HURIWA said the “removal of the most senior Director of DSS – the Bayelsa State born and of Christian faith, citizen Mathew Seiyefa to bring in a retiree from Kano State Alhaji Yusuf Magaji Bichi by president Buhari and the appointment of his kinsman -Alhaji Abbas Umar Masanawa from Katsina to head Nigerian security printing and minting company in an election period when the agency will most likely coordinate the printing of sensitive electoral materials including ballot papers for the 2019 election is not only immoral but a total breach of the federal character principle of the constitution and should be voided.”
HURIWA added, “Section 14 (3) provides that the composition of the Government of the Federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity, and also to command national loyalty, thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few State or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that Government or in any of its agencies.”
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