A Civil Rights Advocacy Group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has tasked governors of the South-east and South-south states to deploy their security votes to procure services of professional forensic private investigators to untangle the identities of the unknown gunmen destroying facilities in their states.
The group said it believed that President Muhammadu Buhari was incapable and unwilling to stop the cocktails of attacks given that for six years, terrorist and violent crimes including kidnappings, and invasions of communities by armed Fulani militia had increased in leaps and bounds all across the country even as the President had manifested alleged absolute lack of capacity or will power to check the widening spectres of violence and killings.
This was contained in a statement from the Executive Director of HURIWA, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko who insisted that only political, religious community and civil society leaders of South-east and South-south extractions could resolve the attacks if they try because “the President that does not trust South-east military officers to head any commanding role of significance under his administration for over six year since coming to office won’t be in a hurry to solve the emerging security nightmares in the South-east and South-south.
“HURIWA wants governors of South Eastern states and their South-south counterparts to spend parts of their security votes to engage the services of private forensic investigators to uncover the identities of the attackers of national security institutions and assets in their regions. Wikipedia had in a report described security votes as a huge amount of money allocated to the 36 states in Nigeria for the sole purpose of security services. Based on Wikipedia figures on Niger Delta states, Delta State governor receives the highest of N2bn monthly followed by Akwa Ibom State with N1.8bn and Rivers State with N1.5bn.
Imo governor receives the lowest with N333.3 million monthly while his counterparts in Abia get N700m; Edo, N900m; Cross River, N500m and Ondo, N600m.
“The monthly figure for Bayelsa State Governor was reportedly shrouded in secrecy, though unconfirmed sources put it at over N1bn. It was gathered that the governors are expected to use the ‘outrageous’ amount of money estimated at over N108bn yearly to tackle security threats such as kidnapping, pipeline vandalism, among others in their domain. Shockingly, there has been rising insecurity in the region with the governors most times absolving themselves and blaming security challenges in their states on the federal government.
“This is because, only a coalition for civilisation can counter the violent extremism of the forces against civilisation that are waging a war against civilisation in the South-east of Nigeria and South-south by destroying security assets built with the sweat and resources of the people of those regions.
“The people and all positive forces in the South-south and South-east of Nigeria needs to reject these systematic degeneration of civilisation and advancement by condemning these attacks and joining forces in a coalition for civilisation to counter these attempts at returning the South-east and South-south to the state of nature whereby life is brutish, short, uninteresting and anti-development.”
HURIWA reiterated her allegations that the attacks in those regions were waged by members of the deep state based in Abuja, adding that it was unlikely that a self-proclaimed platform for liberation through constructive means such as IPOB and MASSOB would be the same agents of darkness seeking and working towards destroying the milestones of advancement already made in the South-east of Nigeria and South-south which is what these senseless and misguided attacks stand for.
