The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has warned the Federal Government of the far reaching devastating consequences of dialoguing or encouraging dialogues through the so-called back channels with armed bandits and terrorists threatening national security.

HURIWA says it is also considering suing the President and the National Assembly to compel both the Executive and Legislative arms to enforce the Counter Terror Act should the principal actors in the Federal Cabinet continue to actively sympathize and fraternize with terrorists and armed bandits in clear violations of the extant ACT.

The rights group stated that the decision of President Muhammadu Buhari to tolerate the dialogues with terrorists as championed by the Kaduna Islamic cleric, Sheikh Abubakar Gumi, is high treasonous and breaches the extant counter terrorism law which is a binding law of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

The rights group has also expressed shock and consternation with the language employed by the Kaduna cleric in the so-called dialogues with terrorists just as the group said if it is true that the Moslem cleric blamed Christian members of the armed forces for the killings of the armed bandits, then this is an act of treason taken too far, if proven.

HURIWA also categorically carpeted Imo State Governor Hope Uzodinma for “his reckless and irrational invitation” of military to embark on suspicious operations in Orlu which is the second largest Senatorial Zone over a matter that did not call for full scale military action given the population density of the area and the absence of any source of threats to the territorial integrity of Nigeria by the Eastern Security Network (ESN).

“Why did the Department of State Service (DSS) and Police harassed, humiliated and intimidated the Christian Southern Kaduna-born erstwhile Deputy Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Dr. Obadiah Mailafiya, for revealing that a Northern governor knows more about the terror attacks in the North but these same security Institutions are watching as Sheikh Gumi is violating the counter terror Act by dialoguing with terrorists and even having knowledge of the exact locations of heavily armed non-state actors and terrorists who have several kidnapped school children?”

Besides, the rights group condemned the activities of the Kaduna-based Islamic cleric for interfering with the war on terror, undermining national security and portraying the country as a lawless contraption whereby the counter terror law means nothing and should not be applied on some categories of terrorists because of their ethnicity or religion.

HURIWA stated that dialoguing with terrorists and armed bandits negates the essence of the extant counter terror law and does not meet the threshold of the legal necessity of extending public support to the war on terror.

“In fact, the toleration of the active sabotage of an existing law, portrays the country as a banana republic whereby some terrorists are better than the rest.

“No policy of government succeeds without public support. The war on terror is no exception. The primary way in which the law advocates support for the war on terror is the proscription of support for terrorism. Section 4(1) of the TPA provides that a person who knowingly, in any manner, solicits or renders support for an act of terrorism or a proscribed organization or an internationally suspected terrorist group, commits an offence under the Act and shall on conviction be liable to imprisonment for a maximum term of 20 years and a sentence of death where death results from the terror.

“There is an omnibus provision which criminalizes and treats as terrorist act ‘any act or omission’ in or outside Nigeria which constitutes an offence within the scope of a counter-terrorism protocols and conventions duly ratified by Nigeria.

“It is difficult to dismiss the general notion that the Nigerian State has not shown political will and commitment to the war on terror. It seems that not only have the real brains behind it not been prosecuted but are also being shielded.

“An ideology based crime does not end with the incarceration of the “foot soldiers”. Unfortunately usual extra judicial killing of high profile suspects suggests a pattern of cover up. Both Mohammed Yusuf and Alhaji Buji Foi, Boko Haram leader and the financier respectively, suffered the same fate while in police custody.”

HURIWA has also called on patriotic Nigerians to take steps legally to compel the President Muhammadu Buhari to wage law based war on terrorists and end these cocktails of appeasement of terrorists in Nigeria.

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