Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has blamed “the abysmal failure of security intelligence and, or, conspiracy of silence on the part of leadership of the Nigerian security agencies for the upsurge in politically-motivated violence during political campaigns.” It called for the immediate suspension of the Rivers State Commissioner of Police and his counterpart in the State Security Services (State Director of DSS), for their collective failure to nip in the bud series of bloody attacks targeted against Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and All Progressives Congress (APC) campaigners.

The rights group noted that “the persistent and near-official acceptance of official incompetence and consistent show of shame by security chiefs in Nigeria has resulted in the spiraling violence and organised crimes being perpetrated by undesirable elements without the security agencies doing anything to check the growing menace.”

HURIWA said in a statement signed by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko: “We believe that state commissioners of police and their counterparts in the Department of State Security (DSS) must be made to take responsibility and account for any breach of peace and break down of law and order in the areas of jurisdiction. The principle of accountability and transparency demands that the persons on whose tables the bulk stop must account for any failure that occur on grand scale in their areas of jurisdiction.

“The only way that leads to the emergence of anarchy and impunity in Nigeria is the current practice whereby the Federal Government and the national hierarchies of the security community have come to live with the ugly reality that those who bear responsibility for keeping security and the rule of law shouldn't be sanctioned administratively for breach of peace and emergence of anarchy in their areas of jurisdiction. (The) Nigerian state must break this vicious circle of official silence whenever senior security officers failed in their duty to provide security of lives and property in their immediate areas of official jurisdiction.”

On the ugly incident in Okrika, Rivers State, in which the governorship candidate of APC was attacked and the campaign rally disrupted so viciously and violently, HURIWA said the belated dramatic public media show being put up by Inspector-General of Police, Mr Suleiman Abba, to investigate the causes of the violence will not achieve any meaningful result, as long as the commissioner of police in charge of that state remains on his duty post, while the so-called investigation is proceeding.

The rights group said the Police Service Commission’s constitutional duty of enforcement of discipline on erring senior police officers has been duplicated, and it is being infringed upon, if the internal probe by the Inspector-General of Police is allowed to overshadow the properly constituted independent investigation that the Nigeria Police Commission ought to provide, if members of that body want Nigerians to see them as persons of integrity and character. “We completely reject this fake investigation and the internal kangaroo panel by the serving Inspector-General of Police, and hereby call for comprehensive independent investigation so any indicted police officer is appropriately prosecuted in competent courts of law, without any cover-up, as we are already used to. We now understand why opposition mounted in some civil society circles rejecting the nomination and confirmation of the current Chairman of the Police Service Commission, the retired inspector-general of police, Mr Mike Mbama Okiro. Since his emergence, this commission that was in institutional slumber has completely gone comatose. The chairman and members are busy gallivanting around and playing partisan politics while the Policing Institution in Nigeria gradually dies away,” the group said.

HURIWA specifically condemned as despicable and irrational the violent attack on the crew from Channels, a local private television detailed to cover the APC’s governorship campaign in Okrika by armed political thugs that stormed the venue of the campaign and caused chaos, leading to the death of innocent Nigerians. It also demanded that media workers who cover political campaigns must be provided sufficient safeguards and security against politically targeted violent attacks, by armed political thugs belonging to rival parties. Because, in the view of the association, the journalists detailed to cover political campaigns are completely non-partisan and are simply carrying out their legitimate duties of educating, entertaining and informing the rest of Nigerians and the world in line with the demands of their profession, and provisions of the Nigerian Constitution (as amended), particularly Section 22, which makes the media the social vanguards and watchdogs of the society, for the preservation of good and qualitative governance in Nigeria.

The group said the handwriting has been on the wall since one year now that political violence will spark off in Rivers State. And many arrests of unscrupulous persons with illegal weapons were made in Rivers State over a year ago, but these culprits were let off the hook; and security officials have failed to put in place proactive and effective anti-violence measures to check the unprecedented rate of politically targeted killings that are happening now.

“The Office of the Rivers State Attorney-General must bring all the indicted armed political thugs and their sponsors to trial in competent courts of law; and the Nigeria Police must be reformed to weed out all the undesirable elements that have found their ways into that near-decadent and rapidly collapsing force. The Department of State Security must also vigorously be on top of their game, to save Nigeria from becoming engulfed completely in violent conflagration and anarchy,” it said.

HURIWA equally condemned the series of violent attacks that targeted the campaign train of President Good luck Jonathan in some Northern states. It has, therefore, canvassed immediate identification, arrest and prosecution in competent courts of law, all indicted armed political gangs implicated in the spate of attacks against President Jonathan’s campaign rallies.

The group said: “What has happened to the thugs that set ablaze the campaign buses of President Jonathan in Jos, Plateau State capital? Why are the thugs not yet charged in court, or are some persons bigger than the law of the land? What about those political thugs that stoned Mr President in Bauchi and other flashpoints in the North? If the Bauchi State government is unwilling to investigate this sad incident, because of the debate in the media between the state governor and the FCT minister on the person that sponsored the political thugs, then the Federal Government should apprehend and bring to trial these thugs and their sponsor, even if these sponsors are top government officials.”

•Photo shows Onwubiko.