The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has blamed “the intrinsically divisive style of the Kaduna State Governor, Malam Nasir el-Rufai, for the persistent incidents of tribal wars in the state.”

The rights group in a statement issued in Abuja on Friday also carpeted the Presidency and the National Assembly “for failing to check the excesses and the cacophony of illegalities of the Kaduna State Governor over the last three and half years. It wondered “why the Kaduna State Governor has not come under security scrutiny even after admitting publicly that he offered cash settlement to alleged armed Fulani marauders to stop calling Southern Kaduna Christians.”

HURIWA was reacting to what it described as the “premeditated, atrocious and provocative, the well-organised assassination of the traditional ruler of Atom Adara Chiefdom, Dr Maiwada Galadima” who earlier abducted the Southern Kaduna monarch.

The group in the statement signed by the National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, and National Media Affairs Director, Miss Zainab Yusuf, noted that Section 308(1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria of 1999 (As Amended) which gives immunity from prosecution to holders of certain executive offices “does not forbid the placement of a governor on security watch if such a person constitute grave danger to public peace.”

It warned that “unless actions are taken by the relevant security, legislative and executive institutions to classify Malam Nasir el-Rufai as a national security risk and put him under intensive SECURITY surveillance, then the intermittent conflicts between divergent ethno-religious divides in Kaduna State may even escalate into full-blown cocktails of civil wars.”

“It is a notorious fact that the current Kaduna state governor is perceived as someone who has in the last three and half years of being in political office to have widened the gulf between the mainly Christian communities in Southern Kaduna state and the Northern part of the highly fragile and conflicts prone state. Kaduna needs a peace builder and someone who embodies tolerance and harmonious co-existent as governor in this twenty-first century and not someone who is more or less an ethnic jingoist and an unrepentant religious bigot and an Islamic fundamentalist,” HURIWA said.

On the killing of the popular traditional ruler who was reportedly summoned by the State Government, HURIWA demanded a transparent investigation by an independent panel of investigators to be drawn from competent and patriotic members of the public including judicial and civil society practitioners to ascertain the remote and immediate causes of this dastardly criminal act of planned assassination of this peace-loving traditional custodian.”

“We once more call on the National Assembly to take up the task of lawmaking process for the Kaduna state people in line with the constitutional provisions since the rubber stamped Kaduna House of Assembly is completely compromised and the members have abdicated their constitutional task of making law for the security and wellbeing of Kaduna State people,” HURIWA said.

“The security forces have also failed to put an end to the armed struggle embarked upon by suspected Fulani mercenaries and other hoodlums whose major diabolical assignment is to destabilise the stability and peace of the entire Southern Kaduna and to instigate civil unrests. This breakdown of law and order must be brought to an end even if it means declaring a state of emergency on security in Kaduna State. The Kaduna State governor has demonstrated that he lacks the charisma and temperament to dispense justice and equity to all the component parts of Kaduna State. Nigerians must not watch as the good people of Kaduna State are destroyed systematically,” the rights group added.

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