Insecurity: Seeking God’s intervention, lame excuse, HURIWA tells Defence Minister

Civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), on Wednesday, lambasted the Minister of Defence, Maj-Gen Bashir Magashi (rtd), over his persistent inability to rid Nigeria of terrorists, noting that seeking God’s intervention is a lame excuse all failures to secure lives and properties of Nigerians.

HURIWA has also condemned the recent military and police operations in Orlu Town of Imo State in which many innocent passer-by and House owners were deprived of their lives extra judicially and their housing assets set ablaze under the guise of chasing after members of the so-called unknown gunmen in the State.

HURIWA, in a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, also said it was fraudulent for the defence minister to continue earning salary on taxpayers’ funds and enjoying all perks of offices while he claimed to look to God for a solution.

The Rights group said it doesn’t make logical sense that the cabinet minister in charge of the National defence of the Country will simply not think out quality strategies to checkmate the rising trends of insecurity but will be read and seen in the media saying that only God can save Nigeria from terrorists.

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The group said Pastors and Imams can as well take over Magashi’s role since it now requires divine consultation and not military warfare or rather the President who is the Commander-in-Chief who has also persistently stated that he looks up to God for an end to the man-made heightened insecurity can as well resign since he has accepted that he as a person lacks the workable methodologies to tackle the expanding frontiers of terrorism and insurgency all over the Country.

Recall that the defence minister had on Easter Sunday called for God’s intervention in the fight against insurgents and other criminal elements in the country.

Magashi said the Easter prayer should also focus on “remembering members of the armed forces presently engaged in various campaigns, for God to grant them total victory over all threats to national peace.”

Reacting, HURIWA’s Onwubiko said, “It is unfortunate that the defence minister, just like his boss, President Muhammadu Buhari, has now surrendered to God. Since God now does his job, why not resign because it is fraudulent to fail to do your constitutionally spelt out duty but you now want God to become the defence minister but you want to continue earning the salaries. Why not surrender the entire salaries to God and then step down?

“Why not allow clerics including native doctors to take over your job since fighting terrorists now involve divine solutions rather than military warfare? If spiritual incantations are what will end terrorist violence, it is all fraudulent and lame excuse of failures to lie against God to cover up incompetence.

“For the umpteenth time, HURIWA calls for the sacking of all the incompetent heads of security agencies especially the defence minister and National Security Adviser, Babagana Monguno if President Muhammadu Buhari seriously wishes to bequeath ant lasting legacy as someone who led Nigeria both as a military dictator and for eight years as a democratically-elected President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria”.