By CHARLES IWUOHA

The Human Rights writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has called on the international community to save Nigeria from the myriad of problems confronting the nation.

HURIWA National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, made the request during an audience with European diplomats in Abuja on Wednesday.

The right’s group listed some of the challenges to include insecurity, as well as political and economic crises that have bedeviled the country since the last seven years.

Onwubiko, in his presentation, dwelt on the series of overlapping security, political and economic crises that have seen Nigeria facing its worst instability since the end of the Biafran war in 1970.

He also spoke extensively on insecurity in general, referencing the allegations of pampering of armed Fulani herders, the arrest of Nnamdi Kanu and the crisis it has created in the South East, youth unemployment, violence and child trafficking, among others.

He asserted that Nigeria has been under political tension because President Muhammadu Buhari, allegedly jettisoned the abundant human resource at his disposal and placed the destiny of Nigeria in the hands of his “few boys” led by Abubakar Malami, whose only political exposure, Onwubiko said, was being the Legal Adviser of Buhari’s Congress for Progressive Change (CPC).

“The political vacuum created was capitalised upon by individuals using him as a cover to execute their personal agenda. He refused to engage the nation and communicated nothing but sectional and parochial messages that threatened and still threaten to tear the nation apart.”

According to the HURIWA top shot, Nigeria was teetering on the precipice of failure due to mounting insecurity from banditry in the north-west, jihadist groups such as Boko Haram in the north-east, violent conflict between farmers and pastoralists across large parts of Nigeria’s “middle belt,” and Igbo secessionists in the south-east calling for an independent Biafra once again.”

“From Boko Haram’s jihadist insurgency in the north, to the escalating conflict between farmers and pastoralists, a growing piracy crisis in the Gulf of Guinea and the newly emboldened Igbo secessionists, Nigeria under the presidency of the retired army general; Muhammadu Buhari since 2015 is facing a mounting sense of crisis

“Those security issues are in addition to a series of other problems, including rising levels of poverty, violent crime, youth unemployment and corruption amid an increasing sense that the central government, in many places, is struggling to govern. All of which has prompted dire warnings from some observers about the state of Nigeria’s democracy.

“There is a sense of disappointment in the fact that the country hasn’t developed as people had expected and has suffered reversals in poverty and youth unemployment. Then there’s the dearth of infrastructure and a generally very poor quality of services,” Onwubiko noted.

On insecurity, the HURIWA boss noted that almost nationwide, people have difficulty moving from one city to another, with kidnappings and danger on the highways. “It is going from a largely governed country with a few ungoverned spaces to a place where there are a few governed spaces while in the rest of the country governance has retreated,” he said.

He added that the unfortunate long history of farmer-herder clashes, local-migrant communities have now been further complicated by criminal activities of elements alleged to be roaming killer Fulani herdsmen or those closely associated with them, some of whom are non-citizens of Nigeria.

“The frequency and severity of this violent criminality points to a failure of political leadership in the country and of our security agencies to address the deeper issues of law and order, and the security of ordinary citizens,” Onwubiko said, adding that the Presidency’s reaction to the herders/farmers crises has “consistently fallen short of the impartiality, responsibility and empathy that is expected of an administration that serves the whole country, and has fueled fears of official complicity, tacit encouragement of criminal elements and their public defenders.”

Onwubiko gave an instance when his group, HURIWA, in October 2020, wrote a letter reuesting the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice; Abubakar Malami, should prosecute armed Fulani killers and the Minister replied that his office was unable to prosecute alleged killer herdsmen owing to the absence of case files.

“The AGF being the chief law officer of the federation is expected in situations like this to partner with the Attorneys-General of the various states to ensure that the herdsmen involved are arrested and prosecuted for the offences committed. Regrettably, we are yet to see such coordination or intervention from the office of the AGF,” he insisted, adding that “the failure to prosecute these criminal elements, bandits, insurgents, marauding Fulani herdsmen and kidnappers, has significantly polarised the country and turned Nigeria into a theatre of violence while undermining the confidence of average Nigerians in the willingness and ability of the State to protect them.”

“More frustrating is that while the government and security agencies are allegedly pampering the outlaws who have become more emboldened, the regime has been going after propagators of secession in the country, especially in the South,” he alleged.

According to him, when Malami hel a Media Briefing mid last year, many Nigerians thought the he was about announcing a major breakthrough in the security crisis facing the nation but he only disclosed that security agencies had apprehended Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra.

“While some applauded the government for apprehending the Biafra leader, a huge number of Nigerians argued that the Federal Government would have focused more on the urgent security situations instead of chasing flies while the nation collapses,” he said.

“It is on record that as at the time of Nnamdi Kanu’s arrest and extradition, mass abductions of students and large-scale killings have assumed pandemic proportions.

“This however could explain the anger among Nigerians with many from the South East expressing fury over Nnamdi Kanu’s secret extradition and the deployment of state power and violence against the leader of IPOB, whereas armed Fulani killers and bandits are busy plying their trade uncontrolled. This could account for the current spate of insecurity in the South East of Nigeria.

“The argument was, if the Federal Government, which has failed to arrest and/or prosecute armed Fulani herders and bandits had demonstrated the same zeal put into the arrest of the IPOB leader, against the leaders of the Fulani militia herdsmen and bandits who have owned up to the killings in the middle belt and the North west, the country would not had been this deeply challenged on several fronts in terms of its economy and people’s livelihoods,” Onwubiko posited.

“The question you Diplomats should ask is why the federal government of Nigeria has refused to deploy the same zeal it unleashed on both Kanu and Igboho against bandits and killer herdsmen who are continuing in their deadly activities in the country almost unchallenged?”

He therefore called on the international community to help in making the President Buhari “and his few narrow-minded advisers” to realise that “neither he nor they together possess any magical capacity to make or remake Nigeria in his or their own image.

“Hence they must wake up from their fantasy dreams to the reality that Nigeria is not and never will be part of any person or tribe’s possessions.”

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