A pro-democracy group, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has condemned the invitation of the founding pastor of Omega Fire Ministries, Rev. Apostle Johnson Suleiman, by the Department of State Services (DSS), alleging that the security agency has embarked on deliberate clamp down on vocal Christian leaders opposed to the incessant killings of farmers all over Nigeria by armed Fulani terrorists.

While calling for caution to avoid catastrophic religious crisis in the country, the group recalled that Suleiman has consistently called for self defence against the unbridled but primitive attacks of Nigerians by well armed and well coordinated Fulani herdsmen.

“HURIWA totally condemn the unwillingness of security forces in Nigeria under President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration whose leadership are majorly dominated by Hausa/Fulani Moslem Northerners who have done nothing whilst armed Fulani terrorists kill thousands of Christian farmers all across Nigeria and mostly the Christian dominated Communities in Kaduna, Benue, Plateau and Taraba states,” the group said in a statement issued on Sunday in Abuja.

HURIWA wondered “why the DSS does not want Nigerians under attacks by Fulani hoodlums to adopt self defence to stay alive even when chapter four of the Nigerian Constitution of 1999 (as amended) makes RIGHT TO LIFE A SACRED FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHT.”

The group recalled that “the Overseer of Omega Fire Ministries Worldwide, Apostle Johnson Suleman, was invited by the Department of State Services to appear at its National Headquarters in Abuja for interrogation on Monday January 30th 2017 by 10:00 am.” HURIWA cautioned DSS “to avoid stoking the embers of religious violence in Nigeria.”

It said that “the invitation is believed to be connected with Suleiman’s alleged inciting comments that Christians should defend themselves against attacks by Fulani herdsmen.”

The group lambasted the DSS for “failing in its constitutional duty of preventing the frequent bloodsheds by armed Fulani terrorists.”

HURIWA said what the DSS should have done “was for the Director General to resign forthwith rather than turning his aggression against the innocent Christian leader who as a father has played the fatherly role of asking his followers to defend their right to life.”

The civil society group warned the officials of the DSS “to stop painting the graphic impression that there is a deliberate attempt by the Presidency to Islamise Nigeria by deploying government’s armed agencies to intimidate, harass and physically brutalise Christian leaders only because they refused to keep silent whilst armed Fulani terrorists kill their members and parents without the Nigerian security forces ever adopting fool proof strategy to arrest, prosecute and punish these armed hoodlums who are operating without let or hindrance.”

HURIWA, speaking through its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, and the National Media Affairs Director, Miss Zainab Yusuf, said: “It amounts to double standards for the DSS to go after Christian leaders for speaking out in defence of their members even when leaders of other Ethno-religious communities in the core North are not arrested even when there are proven cases of abduction and false marriages of child brides as has happened in Katsina Emirate.

“We are shocked that the DSS that couldn’t stop the genocides of Southern Kaduna, Agatu community in Benue and the attacks of Enugu and Abia states all by armed Fulani terrorists is now in a dangerous hurry even at the threat of igniting inter-religious warfare to arrest Christian leaders whose only ‘crime’ is to counsel their members not to standby and allow their lives be taken away by armed marauders.

“The invitation to Apostle Johnson Suleiman is an invitation to anarchy and this divide-and-rule tactics of the Alhaji Daura-led DSS hierarchy is absolutely condemnable, reprehensible, illegal, unconstitutional and totally unjustifiable. Let all Nigerians of goodwill speak out now before this current leadership of DSS drag Nigeria into a needless religious war.”

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