The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately and comprehensively redress the widespread lopsided federal appointments he has made since he was sworn into office.

The group, in a statement issued in Lagos by its the National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director, Miss Zainab Yusuf, said high profile security and defence appointments made so far by the current administration are skewed to favor the Hausa/Fulani Muslim community of Northern Nigeria and should be mitigated and addressed without further delay.

The group also picked loopholes in the recent launch of War Against Indiscipline (WAI) as announced by the Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed and the management of the National Orientation Agency (NOA).

Apart from the fact that what the current administration calls ‘War Against Indiscipline’ has become anachronistic, irrelevant and undemocratic, the rights group also cautioned that any plot by the Federal Government to set up a bogus quasi-military outfit in the name of War Against Indiscipline brigade violates sections 14 (1) and 217 (1) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended).

The group said for any such organ to become operational it is required by necessity that such a body must be created by an Act of Parliament of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Specifically Section 214 (1) of the Constitution states: “There shall be a Police Force for Nigeria, which shall be known as the Nigerian Police Force, and subject to the provisions of this section no other Police Force shall be established for the Federation or any part thereof.”

Even as Section 217 (1) states clearly that any military or pseudo military outfit must have a parliamentary approval thus: “There shall be an armed forces for the Federation which shall consist of an Army, a Navy, an Air Force and such other branches of the armed forces of the Federation as may be established by an Act of the National Assembly.”

HURIWA said the move by the Ministry of Information and Culture amounted to an illegality that must be discouraged forthwith.

HURIWA says the creation of another contraption to embark on indiscriminate violations of the rights and dignity of the human person in the name of enforcing disciplinary orders as if we are in a military regime is an indirect way of increasing the cost of governance in an era of rapidly shrinking revenue accruing to the Federation Accounts.

The rights group also restated her call on President Buhari to take practical steps to correct the glaring imbalances in his strategic appointments so far especially in the military and other security institutions.

The appointments it stated violates Section 14 (3) of the 1999 Constitution which affirms thus: “The composition of the Government of the Federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity, and also to command national loyalty, thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few states or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that Government or in any of its agencies.”

HURIWA reminded President Buhari that as an elected statesman who was administered a binding oath of office in line with the Nigerian Constitution he must comply with spirit and letters of the Nigerian supreme law and equitably redistribute strategic appointments to reflect the federal character of Nigeria.

•Photo shows President Buhari.

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