The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has vowed to write a protest letter to the governing council of the International Criminal Court, ICC, in The Hague to demand the removal of the Nigerian-born President of ICC, Mr. Chile Eboe-Osuji “following his seemingly compromised role leading to the ignominious invitation he extended to the Nigerian President to deliver a guest lecture at the just ended 20th anniversary” of the court.
It wondered how Buhari can be invited for the event, “when it is a notorious fact that there are over a dozen petitions sent to the International Criminal court, accusing President Muhammadu Buhari of conspiracy in the killings of thousands of Christian Northerners by armed Fulani herdsmen (his kinsmen) who enjoy tacit approval of the current Nigerian government which against constitutional provisions appointed an all Muslim/Hausa/Fulani security chiefs since coming to office in 2015-a situation that motivated the armed fulani killer hoodlums”.
The civil rights organisation spoke in a statement signed on Sunday by its national coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and national media affairs director, Miss Zainab Yusuf, which suspected that “the President of ICC may have been compromised by the politicians to buy the current President the juicy slot of a speaking opportunity before the International community in which case the Presidency feasted on the invitation to harvest torrents of PUBLIC relations’ objectives for the embattled Nigerian President who is notorious for human rights violations and for disobeying court orders”.
The group described the Buhari government as one under which “several persons are kept in underground cells of the Department of state services (DSS) for years without trial including journalists and leaders of religious minorities such as the Leader of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria and his wife who have been detained for three years even after soldiers killed hundreds of their unarmed members in Zaria, Kaduna State.”
It added that the erstwhile National Security Adviser, Colonel Sambo Dasuki (retd) has six Federal High Court bails but President Muhammadu Buhari has so far refused to respect any of these in flagrant breach of the Constitutional principle of separation of powers “and he is deploying armed police and DSS to harass and intimidate vocal members of the Senate who have protested these serial illegalities of the current administration”.
HURIWA further accused the Buhari government of “tolerating crimes against humanity committed by his kinsmen who have not only attacked communities in the North Central states including a large portion of Southern Kaduna dominated by Northern Christian farmers and have reportedly taken over their lands and housing assets which clearly violates all well known human rights norms and laws including the chapter four of the 1999 Constitution which amongst others guarantees citizens the right to own landed property and the Right not to be expelled from their communities.”
The statement, however, called on the United Nations; European Union and the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, to prevail on Buhari to quickly ensure the evacuation of all armed Fulani herdsmen occupying villages they attacked in Plateau; Benue, Adamawa; Taraba and Southern Kaduna States to enable the ancestral land owners to return to their homes and resume farming activities.
This was as the group resolved to petition world leaders on Monday through their embassies and High Commissions to demand diplomatic pressure on the Nigerian President and parliament to act decisively to bring perpetrators of the mass killings to justice and retrieve lands of the victims of the vicious attacks from the armed occupiers.
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