•Says Nigeria’s security architecture has collapsed or been compromised

A civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has expressed worry over the intensity of terrorist attacks in the North West of the country.

The group also blamed the alleged involvement of security agents in fraudulent activities on lack of due diligence during recruitment.

National Coordinator of HURIWA, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, in a statement on Wednesday, therefore, called on the Nigeria Police Force, the Nigerian Army and other security agencies to thoroughly screen potential officers before recruitment to ensure persons of questionable character with criminal records were not employed.

The group which was reacting to the news that dare-devil terrorists killed 19 soldiers and a police officer attached to the Deputy Governor of Kebbi State, Samaila Dabai Yombe, early Wednesday morning, said the development was an indication of the unwillingness of the security agencies to decisively decimate, degrade and destroy the terrorists unleashing terror in the entire North West of Nigeria despite their declaration as terrorists by a Federal High Court.

According to reports, the terrorists ambushed the Deputy Governor’s convoy in Kanya, Danko/Wasagu Local Government Area of Kebbi State. The Deputy Governor, who confirmed the incident, narrowly escaped death.

HURIWA said the failure of the heads of Nigeria’s internal security institutions and the Army to defeat these terrorists ought to be a cause for national emergency, adding that the Rights group was wondering why the National Assembly has continuously shirked their national duty of oversight to compel the Armed forces to behave as a National and not a regional institution. HURIWA alleged that another bad side of the armed forces was the seamless manner that armed robbers get themselves enlisted into these armed security forces.

The group called on the Inspector General of Police, Usman Baba; the Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Faruk Yahaya; amongst others, to conduct due diligence and root out the bad eggs under them, while urging President Muhammadu Buhari to hire a new but competent National Security Adviser who could provide functional tips on how to crush terrorists.

On the alleged involvement of security agents in fraudulent activities, HURIWA recalled that the Rivers State Police Command recently arrested and detained four police officers attached to its Puff Adder Tactical Unit for alleged extortion of about N200,000 from a 200-level student of the Ignatius Ajuru University of Education, Kingsley Dike.

According to the victim, he was in a vehicle on his way home March 4, 2022 at about 10 pm when the policemen stopped and searched him and his colleague and later took them to their base in the Aluu community even after “nothing was found” on them.

Dike said at the station the “police officers ordered him to remove the code” on his phone and later threw them in the cell and directed them to write a statement indicting themselves as “internet fraudsters,” which they complied with, out of fear of being killed.

The students explained the officers thereafter gave them “an account number” where they transferred the sum of N200,000 before they were released.

HURIWA made reference to a report by PUNCH Newspaper on December 11, 2021 that captures how Yahoo boys befriend, bribe policemen, soldiers to evade justice and how Yahoo boys apply for police and army jobs to be unnoticed.

HURIWA further referred to the Chief of Civil Military Affairs (Army), Maj-Gen Markus Kangye, who earlier this week, said the Nigerian Army received and treated over 500 complaints about human rights violations across the country between 2016 and now.

The group also cited the case of suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police, Abba Kyari, in an alleged collusion with drug baron.

According to Onwubiko, “The incessant cases of police operatives and soldiers getting involved in robberies all around Nigeria are worrisome. The problem is traceable to poor quality of supervision and the failure of intelligence at the point of recruitment.

“Under normal circumstances, the police and the army ought to maintain a well-secured national data of finger prints of convicted criminals so the institutions can quickly determine the background of potential and prospective recruits to weed out criminals before their enlistment.

“These tendencies for criminality are the reasons there is deficits of trust of the police by citizens. Security agencies must sit tight and weed out the too many bad and rotten eggs amongst them.”