The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has observed that the high-profile security and defence appointments so far made by the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari are skewed to favor the Hausa/Fulani Muslim community of Northern Nigeria, stressing that the president should immediately and comprehensively redress the widespread factual claims of high level lopsided federal appointments.
The appointments it stated violates Section 14 (3) of the 1999 Constitution which affirms thus: “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 states or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that Government or in any of its agencies.”
In a statement by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director, Miss Zainab Yusuf, HURIWA reminded Buhari that as an elected statesman who was administered a binding oath of office in line with the Nigerian Constitution he must comply with spirit and letters of the Nigerian supreme law and equitably redistribute strategic appointments to reflect the federal character of Nigeria.
It stated that the comprehensive redressing of such apparent lopsidedness will apart from saving the government needless litigations and save such expenses to social services, it will also ensure that the legacy of President Muhammadu Buhari as a Nigerian statesman will be restored.
The civil society organization also picked foundational loopholes with the recent launch of the War Against Indiscipline, WAI, as announced on behalf of the Federal Minister of Information Alhaji Lai Mohammed by the management of the National Orientation Agency, NOA.
It noted that beside the point that what the current administration calls ‘war against indiscipline’ has become anachronistic, irrelevant and undemocratic, any plot by the Federal government to set up a bogus quasi-military outfit in the name of war against indiscipline brigade violates sections 14 (1) and 217 (1) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended).
The rights group maintained that for any such organ to become operational it is required by necessity that such a body must be created by an Act of National Parliament of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, noting that Section 214 (1) of the Constitution specificcaly states that: “There shall be a Police Force for Nigeria, which shall be known as the Nigerian Police Force, and subject to the provisions of this section no other police Police Force, and subject to the provisions of this section no other police force shall be established for the Federation or any part thereof.”
HURIWA said the move by the ministry of information and culture amounted to an illegality that must be discouraged forthwith, asserting that “the creation of another contraption to embark on indiscriminate violations of the rights and dignity of the human person in the name of enforcing disciplinary orders as if we are in a military regime is an indirect way of increasing the cost of governance in an era of rapidly shrinking revenue accruing to the Federation Accounts.”
The statement further “reminded the President to not only listen to his coteric of praise singers hibernating and feeding fat is inside the fortified and well funded Presidential Villa but to watch the pulse of the general public especially outside of his ethno-religious community to hear the bottled up angst over these clear breaches of the Federal Character bottled up angst over these clear breaches of the Federal Character Principle by his government.”
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