Civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has lambasted President Muhammadu Buhari for rejecting the announcement of travel bans imposed on some notorious election manipulators and riggers who have destroyed electoral tenets in the last Kogi and Bayelsa states governorship polls.

In a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, and the National Media Affairs Director, Miss Zainab Yusuf, HURIWA said President Buhari, who is the appointing authority of the Independent National Electoral commission (INEC) and “the heavily ethically challenged” elections management team of the electoral umpire should also involved in the visa ban by those foreign jurisdictions.

HURIWA recalled that the Federal Government had reportedly told the United States and the United Kingdom that the country has enough provisions in its laws to punish violators and orchestrators of electoral violence and fraud in the country just as the government said it acknowledged the issues some of its partners, especially, the United States and the United Kingdom raised regarding the elections in Edo and Ondo states.

HURIWA, which backs the decision of the two nations, said it was “gratifying that both countries expressed their intention to take decisive actions against those involved in what they termed as ‘undermining democracy’.”

But the rights group said the two nations did not go far enough in punishing election manipulators in Nigeria who were still actively calling the shots in the Edo state governor’s election and are actually holding top positions in the Federal Government.

HURIWA debunked the claims by the Federal Government that Nigeria has enough laws against election riggers, adding that there is no record to show that any of the officials who manipulated elections in Nigeria since 1999 has ever been sanctioned.

It said what is happening in Nigeria is that those who rig elections are rewarded with Federal or State Government’s appointments just as judges who manipulate judicial system to win election-related litigation in courts are elevated to higher bench in the judiciary.

“The Presidency’s rejection of the decisions by both the US and UK following thei visa ban on election offenders during the November 2019 elections in Bayelsa and Kogi States, and their threat to apply same sanctions, is preposterous and laughable,” HURIWA said.

It further noted that it is dangerous for democratic nations to allow those who sabotage constitutional democracy to move freely in their own countries just the same way that the US and the UK are worried about the Russians using the Cyber facilities to undermine their elections.

“The US and UK have done well to ban these election manipulators who are actually made to hold top rated political offices in Nigeria which is the reason for the collapse of both democratic practices and the economy.

“For the Federal Government in a statement issued by the Spokesperson of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ferdinand Nwonye, to have stated that it would be considered disrespectful of the sovereignty of Nigeria for any outside authority to sit in judgment over the conduct of its citizens and apply punitive measures such as visa restriction, unilaterally, shows actually that election manipulators are the people calling the shots in the different layers of governments in Nigeria because only a criminal will reject well-grounded sanctions imposed on criminals,” HURIWA said, adding that it is completely untrue that President Buhari promotes free and fair elections.

“President Buhari is the father of election manipulations. The US and UK should place a travel ban on him, the INEC chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, and his Commissioners,” the rights group said.

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