The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has commended President Muhammadu Buhari’s choice of a legal luminary, Mr. Tony Ojukwu, as substantive Executive Secretary of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).

The group, however, charged the president to ensure that only credible Nigerians with sound commitments and passion for altruistic, selfless, and patriotic services are appointed into the governing council of the Commission to ensure its independence, credibility and operationally excellence.

HURIWA submitted that the choice of the longstanding staff of the Commission as its head has made history positively and signposts likely manifestation of a national human rights enforcement agency that won’t be seen by Nigerians as mere mouthpiece of the Federal Government but a Commission that stands at the threshold of momentous history.

National Coordinator of the group, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, and its National Director of Media Affairs, Miss Zainab Yusuf, in a statement maintained that although it took President Buhari a long time to nominate a substantive Executive Secretary long after the last head of the Commission completed his tenure, the decision to pick one of Nigeria’s foremost human rights lawyers shows that government may have started listening to the aspirations and yearnings of a cross section of human rights practitioners.

The group, however, expressed fear that should the President “commit the fatal error of appointing politicians to the governing council, then we can as well say good bye to that wonderful institution.

“Mr. President has done well to have sent the name of Mr. Anthony Ojukwu, from Imo State, and a senior Director of the Rights Commission to step in to head the place in what is obviously the first time ever that the highest political authority in the land has chosen merit, competency and qualifications over mundane politics. The decision to look inwards rather than bring a stranger that lacks institutional memory and zeal to lead the place is worth celebrating. This right step must be followed by the best practices of picking only persons with credible human rights backgrounds as commissioners and board members.

“We hereby asked the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to hasten the process of confirming this great lover of human rights and democracy Mr. Tony Ojukwu to head the National Human Rights Commission. Ojukwu’s profound knowledge of the human rights sector will definitely bring about immediate and comprehensive reforms to the strategic engagements with civil rights leaders to serve the public good of Nigerians.”

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