As the global community marks the World Human Rights Day, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has called on the Federal Government of Nigeria and the National Assembly to transparently carry out an investigation into allegations of high handedness and extralegal killings of unarmed members of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) shortly before it was hurriedly proscribed during the controversial Operation Python Dance 11 by soldiers drafted to the South East of Nigeria.

In a statement to mark the 2017 World Human Rights Day and the 10^th anniversary of the founding of HURIWA, the Rights group condemned what it viewed as the widespread conspiratorial silence by the current administration to the massive and large scale atrocities and massive human rights violations committed by officers of the Nigeria Army during the month-long Operation Python Dance 11 in the South East of Nigeria during which scores of civilians were killed through coordinated extralegal executions carried out by the armed security forces and the public torture of dozens of civilians suspected to be members of IPOB.

In a statement signed jointly by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director, Miss Zainab Yusuf, HURIWA condemned the government and the leadership of the Nigerian National Assembly “for apparently failing to carry out proper; thorough and forensic human rights investigation with the objectives of naming, shaming, prosecuting and legally sanctioning the culprits who inflicted pains and carried out illegal executions of civilians who were completely unarmed and whose only crime was that they belonged to IPOB which as at the time of these widespread atrocities wasn’t proscribed.”

HURIWA affirmed that the nation can’t make any claim of subscribing to the tenets and provisions of the Universal Declarations of Human Rights “when the supposed law enforcement agencies like the security forces including the Police are neck deep in carrying out large scale atrocities of gross human rights abuses including committing crimes against humanity such as massive extralegal executions of unarmed protesters and civilians whose only crime was that they were canvassing for self determination through constitutional means.”

The rights group tasked President Muhammadu Buhari to provide clear and unambiguous information on the physical whereabouts of the leader of IPOB, Mr. Nnamdi Kanu whose home was attacked and ransacked by armed security forces during the controversial military deployment.

HURIWA also carpeted the United Nations Human Rights Council; the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) for failing to speak out against the widespread abuses of the human rights of South Eastern Nigerians. It condemned the total disobedience to binding court orders which ordered the release of erstwhile National Security Adviser, Colonel Sambo Dasuki and the leader of Islamic Movement of Nigeria, Sheikh Ibrahim El Zakzaky who have spent two years in illegal detention.

Conversely, the group said the Federal Government must also carry out comprehensive reforms of the Nigeria Police force which it argued has become “a criminal syndicate used by the hierarchy to perpetrate all sorts of organised and sophisticated crimes including armed robberies, grand scale extortion, racketeering, commercialisation of weapons to hoodlums, bribery and massive corruption.”

HURIWA stated: “The nation-wide advocacy for the abolition of SARS by the Police is in order. SARS is the Police unit that has over the years committed gross human rights violations including the extralegal killings of hundreds of detainees in the various Police detention facilities in the country. This same so called special anti-robbery squad of the Nigeria Police was responsible for the killing of over three dozen youths whose fresh corpses were discovered in Awka Anambra State in a River. SARS have carried out atrocities in Lagos and Rivers states including organised crime and the harassment of youngsters.”

Update news