Prominent Non Governmental organisation, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has cautioned the military against obeying the “death” threat of President Muhammadu Buhari against ballot box snatchers.
HURIWA cautioned the top military hierarchy to be wary of “falling foul of international crimes court’s binding injunctions of committing crimes against humanity” by obeying what it termed “totally unlawful order” of the President.
The rights group said Buhari can’t validly exercise the powers of the “commander-in-chief in line with section 217(1) of the ground norm and subsequent provisions on the operational modalities of the Armed forces during this election in the absence of a valid supporting legislation by the National Assembly besides the fact that he is also a candidate in the election and therefore would be committing high treason punishable under both municipal and global crimes’ laws should he authorize the unlawful deployment of lethal weapons extra legally during the conduct of an election in which he is one of the over 70 contestants.”
In a statement by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, HURIWA told the military heads that they will inevitably be arrested in Europe, America or any other jurisdictions and flown into the ICC for prosecution should any Nigerian citizen be killed illegally “based on the jaundiced and politically toxic but all together unconstitutional shoot-at-sight order.”
HURIWA reminded the military hierarchy that their “loyalty for now and during the periods of the elections is to the people of Nigeria and the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and not to either the All Progressives Congress, Peoples Democratic party or the holder of the office of President who is to be treated as equal contestant at the polls and is therefore not permitted by electoral Act and the Constitution to resort to the use of self help measures such as giving far reaching directives to the Nigerian Army to kill suspected electoral offenders even when both the extant electoral Act and section 33(1) of the Nigerian constitution makes it illegal for extra judicial execution to be deployed against offenders who in any event are presumed innocent by the Constitution (36 subsection 5) until a valid decision of a court of competent jurisdiction recognised and empowered by section 6 of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria determines otherwise. HURIWA reminds military heads that the constitution is valid and sacrosanct and supersedes any kind of order that violates a clearly written provisions of the law. ”
The NGO stated that military heads should be aware that the constitution was valid and sacrosanct and supersedes any kind of order that violates a clearly written provisions of the law.
The rights group also stated that it’s important to remind the “Nigerian Army of the Rome statute setting up global crimes court in The Hague Netherlands to prosecute war crimes against humanity and extralegal killings such as the one the current Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress has asked verbally for the military to commit acts of crimes against humanity.”
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