Group urges Tinubu to expose, prosecute terrorists sponsors in Nigeria

A civil rights group, HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA), has urged President Bola Tinubu to name, shame and prosecute sponsors of terrorists in Nigeria.

HURIWA argued that “it is becoming clearer that anti-democracy forces who are behind the funding of the daredevil activities of terrorists have upped their game so as to blackmail the current administration to set up a juicy Amnesty programme for Fulani terrorists;” the Rights group maintained that “the latest kidnapping of villagers in Kajuru could be one amongst their game-plans to force the president into accepting their deal.”

According to the group, “in the light of the above concerns, the federal government has been asked to immediately name, shame and begin the prosecution of sponsors of terrorists because the exposure of funders of terrorists is the best first step to breakdown the sophisticated network of terrorism franchises in Nigeria whose patrons are now using the mass abductions of villagers and school children as bargaining chips to advance their advocacy for the establishment of the Amnesty programme for Fulani terrorists as is been canvassed vigorously by a section of Northerners.

“We urge president Tinubu to take a personal interest in the pattern of campaigns for the establishment of an Amnesty programme for terrorists made up essentially of Fulani terrorists.

“The President should task his intelligence chiefs to dig deeper and uncover the hidden characters behind the unpopular calls for dialogues with terrorists which are being masked as a moral or religious obligation when it is clearly for economic reasons. We believe that this is a job of scammers and funders of terrorists who hope to successfully blackmail the federal government into accepting their satanic agenda of entering into dialogues with terrorists so they can very well become richer from their criminal network of terrorism.

“This government should never be blackmailed into giving in to the illegitimate demands of those who are out to protect and promote terrorists and their evils.”

HURIWA decried the information that about 87 villagers have been reportedly abducted yet again in the last 24 hours by terrorists during an alleged vicious raid in Kajuru community, Kajuru Local Government Area, Kaduna State, just as the terrorists, as was gathered by the media, stormed the village around 10.00pm on Sunday night.

The group noted that Harisu Dari, a member of the Kajuru-Station Youths, confirmed the incident on Monday in Kaduna.

He said the terrorists also broke into some shops and stole food items and other valuables.

HURIWA recalled that the media is reporting that this latest attack is coming barely 48 hours after 15 women and a man were kidnapped in the Dogon-Noma community of the same local government.
It remarked that Kajuru and Chikun local government areas had in the past two weeks witnessed unprecedented attacks by terrorists.

Harisu, according to the media, explained that no contact has been made yet with the 87 locals abducted on Sunday night.

“As of the time I visited the community this morning, security operatives have not been drafted to help restore the confidence of the villagers.

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“The villagers are traumatic with the sad development. The government needs to re-strategise in tackling these terrorists,” he said.

HURIWA in a statement by the National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, condemned this latest round of kidnapping of villagers in Kaduna State and described it as the handiwork of blackmailers, conflicts entrepreneurs and those who run the network of terrorists that have been terrorising the people in the North West of Nigeria even as the Rights group said it is unfortunate that the Federal Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Lateef FAGBEMI, was recently quoted in the media that the current government was not willing to name and shame terrorists.

HURIWA stated that it is unfortunate that the current government has followed the bad steps of the immediate past administration by toeing the same conspiratorial lane of remaining adamant in not naming, shaming and transparently prosecuting the identified sponsors of terrorists.

The group recalled that recently, the federal government had said it will not name and shame identified financiers of terrorism in the country.

“We believe in the time-tested, and time-honoured affirmation that publicly naming sponsors of terrorists and other evils in Nigeria would help in a big way to open more Pandora boxes and encourage citizens with valuable human intelligence to discreetly offer such to the government through a mechanism that would guarantee their anonymity and safety. But shielding sponsors of terrorists, conveys the wrong notion that the government is either too weak, afraid or has compromised with these architects of social evils in Nigeria. The government owes Nigerians the duty to expose and prosecute to a logical conclusions, all the identified sponsors of terrorists,” the group highlighted.

The group noted that the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, LATEEF FAGBEMI, disclosed this in an interview on the sidelines of the 27th Inter-Governmental Action Group Against Money Laundering in West Africa Ministerial Committee Meeting in Abuja.

FAGBEMI said the government would not go into name and shame because it may jeopardise further investigation or apprehension of other people involved.

HURIWA, however, protested that the lack of decisiveness on the part of the current administration to fundamentally depart from the inept, ill-informed and ineffective methodology of waging the war on terror from the poor records of the immediate past government, is responsible for the heightened state of insecurity being unleashed on Nigerians by terrorists.

HURIWA also expressed surprise that the intelligence community in the country have failed abysmally to pinpoint to the security agencies possible flashpoints of attacks by terrorists who have continued to stage mass abductions almost at the same geographical axis in Kaduna State without the security forces adopting proactive measures to nip these attacks in the bud.

HURIWA stated that: “It is a thing of shame that these terrorists have been allowed by the authorities to continue to launch devastating raids on communities which are approximately within the same local councils of Kaduna State and the security agencies are incapable of aborting any of these coordinated attacks on the citizens.”