A leading non-governmental organisation in the country, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has accused the Kaduna State Governor, Malam Nasir el-Rufai; the Army Commander in Kaduna and the heads of other security agencies (with the exception of the Police Commissioner) of being directly responsible for the renewed violence in Kajuru in Kaduna following their consistent spreading of fake news on the killings of Fulani by the Christian population.

Such fake news, the rights group believes, has stoked the embers of reprisal killings by armed Fulani herdsmen.

HURIWA also noted that that it was heartrending that the Federal Government watched as the Kaduna State Governor, through the media outlets in the country, continued to poison the minds of Fulani people by insisting that the indigenous people in Kajuru carried out mass killings of Fulani just as the military commander and others gave tacit support to the Governor even whilst he stoked the embers of enmity and conflicts between Fulanis against their Christian neighbours.

The rights group, while asking the European Union to impose a travel ban on Governor el-Rufai and all the heads of security forces in the state, commended the State Police Commissioner for refuting the casualty figures that were bandied by el-Rufai prior to the latest rounds of reprisal killings by armed Fulani killer-gangs targeting Christians.

HURIWA also blamed Malam el-Rufai for promoting politics of islamisation of the state machinery by sticking to his despicable choice of a Moslem running mate in a state that is evenly divided amongst the two dominant religious groups of Christians and Moslems. It also condemned the electoral heist which occasioned the declaration of el-Rufai as winner of the disputed just conducted governorship poll.

HURIWA has therefore encouraged the candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to challenge his alleged manipulated defeat at the Election Tribunal.

It recalled that the Kaduna State Governor had on February 15, 2019 claimed without any shred of empirical evidence that there was the death of 66 people in Kajuru Local Government Area of the state who are mostly Fulani and allegedly murdered by the Christians neighbouring the Fulani settlements in the area.

It also accused the Kaduna Governor of using the media to foul the harmonious coexistence of Fulanis and their Christian neighbours when he kept hammering in the media of mass communication that amongst the victims were 22 children and 12 women, while four wounded persons were rescued alive, the government stated in a public statement.

HURIWA recalled that even the media that helped spread the falsehood peddled by the current Kaduna state administration stated that at the time of the massacres and the incident leading to them were, however, not explained in the release.

“The Governor, in the statement, regretted the development and vowed that those responsible for the massacres will be brought to justice. Then on February 19th 2019, Gov. Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna state says the death toll as a result of the communal clash in the Kajuru Local Government Area of the state has risen to 130 as against the previous figure of 66. El-Rufai stated this when he spoke to State House correspondents after briefing a security meeting which was presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, recently,” HURIWA said.

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