A pro-democracy non-governmental organisation, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has canvassed the immediate arrest by the Nigeria Police Force and interrogation of the Senior Special Assistant on National Assembly matters to President Muhammadu Buhari, Senator Ita Enang, for allegedly falsifying the proposed Federal Budget of 2016 presented to the Senate of the Federal Republic.

In a statement jointly signed by the National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, and the National Media Affairs Director, Miss Zainab Yusuf, HURIWA said any attempt to sweep under the carpets the allegations of such a monumental magnitude of alleged theft of the 2016 budget would amount to an unmitigated impunity and would signpost the total abandonment by the National policing institution of its constitutional duty which is an inevitable prelude to the breakdown of law and order.

The group said the lesson to be learnt by the inaction of the law enforcement agencies to the emerging accusations on the theft of the 2016 budget and its replacement with a fake edition is that the international community would view Nigerian government as a band of gangsters who give no qualms about reported breach of the law committed by high profile federal government officials linked to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria which is a very dangerous precedence.

“It is in the self enlightened interest of President Muhammadu Buhari that any of his officials suspected of masterminding this horrendous national shame of theft of the original version of the 2016 budget are suspended from official duties until such a person or persons could purge himself or themselves of such damaging and extensively embarrassing national odium and/or is discharged and acquitted of such charges. There is no amount of public relations damage limitation strategy that can clean up this image of a Presidency that tolerate misdemeanour if no action or measures are adopted to remedy this abysmal slap on our international image as a constitutional democracy. Let all the Presidency officials implicated or fingered in this grandiose show of shame be brought to book,” HURIWA said.

It also condemned the alleged conversion of a serving operative of the Department of State Service (DSS) serving with the minister of Interior Lieutenant General Danbazau into a domestic servant as depicted in a widely circulated video which shows the Secret Police operative cleaning up the dusty shoes of someone identified on the video trending on the social media as the Interior minister.

The rights group said if it is confirmed that the serving DSS operative indeed was used as a domestic servant as a shoes shiner then the minister must be suspended for some months without pay as an effective deterrent to stop government officials from grossly abusing their official privileges as Federal Cabinet members.

Said HURIWA: “We note with disappointment that whereas the current Inspector General of Police, Mr. Solomon Arase, and other relevant authorities are in the public media advertising that henceforth police operatives should stop carrying hand bags for political office holders this video of the alleged use of a member of the nation’s secret police as shoes shiner is a crime against the institution of the Department of State Service because it has devalued members of such an esteemed national institution as mere slaves of serving political office holders who are of the All Progressives Congress specie. This incident must be investigated and appropriate sanctions as suggested above adopted if the minister is found wanting. This is absolutely unacceptable and very despicable.”

•Photo shows Senator Ita Enang.

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