The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has been tasked to set up an armed Civilian Joint Task Force to harmonise operations in aid of the security forces.

The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) handed down the task in a statement issued on Monday and signed by the National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko

HURIWA said the decision by the FCT Minister Mohammed Bello to rally the support and partnership of all heads of security institutions in the contiguous states to Abuja to embark on joint security patrols was “a great idea that ought to be sustained long after the current heightened state of insecurity abates because in its words, security is not an ad-hoc arrangement but effective security is to be made as a long term objective.” The rights group asked that a civilian joint task force be established “with membership drawn from just retired operatives of the security Service and volunteers whose background checks must be adequately conducted to add to the existing security structures in the Federal Capital Territory.”

HURIWA called on President Muhammadu Buhari “to brace up and battle terrorists as a statesman and not give room to suspicions that his administration has a sinister agenda to hand over government to Islamic terrorists so Nigeria becomes like Afghanistan governed by terrorists.”

“We are worried that the commander-in-chief President Muhammadu Buhari got 42 reports of possible breaches of security of Abuja by terrorists sent to him by the DSS but he failed to take proactive steps not until the terrorists indeed attacked Kuje prisons and have since attacked Zuba and Bwari with scores of soldiers killed. This tardiness of president calls into question his state of mind and the need for the national assembly to act fast to avert the collapse of constitutional democracy by conducting medical examination of the state of mind of president Buhari in line with the Constitutional Provision with a view to ascertaining why he refused to act on 42 intelligent reports sent to him by the DSS as disclosed by the Deputy Speaker,” HURIWA.

It said it is “beyond imagination that a President with a vibrant state of mind could overlook 42 security reports of imminent attacks but is seen jumping all over the place to the prison facility as soon as the attack which he was forewarned took place. We think his state of mind must be ascertained.”

HURIWA is also worried that “for two years running both the Niger and Nasarawa state governors raised alarm of presence of Boko Haram elements setting up cells in their states but president Muhammadu Buhari refused to act to crush the terrorists.”

“Again, today the executive governor of Nasarawa State, Abdullahi Sule, has raised serious alarm over noticed movements of people suspected to be bandits fleeing from Niger, Zamfara, Kebbi and Kaduna states. This came a few days after ordering the closure of schools in the state following security concerns,” HURIWA said.

It quoted the governor as stating that large numbers of the fleeing bandits had been noticed in Rugan Juli and Rugan Madaki in Karu Local Government on the borders of the Federal Capital Territory as well as Wamba and Toto local government areas in the state.

HURIWA wondered why the National Assembly went on recess at a time of a national security emergency, just as the rights group has asked Nigerians to organise peaceful nation-wide demonstrations to force the government to be honest with the war on terror. “This is the time for all Nigerians to speak out loud and clear to stop Nigeria from being handed over by President Muhammadu Buhari to Islamic terrorists as widely speculated,” the group said.