A non-governmental organization, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, yesterday called on the state Houses of Assembly to create armed vigilante, similar to the Civilian-JTF, in the South East and other parts of the country where suspected Fulani herdsmen have continued to commit mass killings of villagers.
The group also condemned the South East governors and political leaders, “for failing to collectively protest the incessant killings of Igbos by armed Fulani herdsmen and the conspiratorial silence and inactions of both the military and the Directorate of State Security Services.”
A statement issued by the National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director, Miss Zainab Yusuf, reads in part, “South East governors have betrayed their people. By allowing the Fulani herdsmen to keep killing their people without putting transparent pressures on President Muhammadu Buhari to take measures to deploy soldiers to protect their people is tantamount to sabotage.”
HURIWA argued that, “the fact that the Federal Government can create a special military Battalion to go after cattle rustlers but do nothing to disarm, arrest and prosecute armed Fulani herdsmen means that there is a State sponsored genocide that has been carefully plotted and are being coordinated.”
It therefore challenged South East leaders to initiate both local and international actions to call the World’s attention to the killings, stressing that “all elected Igbo politicians and other Stakeholders must force the Nigerian Federal Government and the United Nations to step in and stop civil war from breaking out.”
HURIWA condemned the Enugu State government for going to bed after the first fatal attacks on Enugu community by armed Fulani herdsmen, which it said, emboldened the attackers to stage another daring raid deep inside Nkanu Local council area few kilometres from the government house, “which has resulted in the killing of many Enugu villagers and a Catholic Seminiarian.”
The statement reads, “We have made several calls and proffered concrete panacea to these incessant deadly armed Fulani attacks but President Muhammadu Buhari who is a Fulani has failed to view these attacks all over Nigeria as a major threat to National security but he could rapidly set up military detachments to protect Fulani herdsmen all over Nigeria in the guise of going after cattle rustlers. President Muhammadu Buhari must be tasked to take military action against armed Fulani marauders now”.
“Let the Nigerian people take action to defend their communities because it is clear the Nigerian government currently has provided moral motivation to Fulani herdsmen to continue their rampage nation-wide. The State Houses of Assemblies must pass emergency laws bringing into being armed Civilian-JTF for the purposes of protecting their people and communities from being wiped off the World map. The World must speak out now.”
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