President Muhammadu Buhari has been told the major motivating factor for the expanding frontiers of threats of attacks by terrorists in Nigeria and the continuous attacks of soft targets by dare-devil terrorism masterminds.
HURIWA explained that members of the armed Islamists believe that if they kill as many innocent people as they want, they will deceptively surrender to the Army and be given exclusive and preferential treatment as repentant terrorists and released after a few months of the so-called deradicalization programme organised by the military on the orders of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Making the demand ahead of Buhari’s convocation of the emergency security council meeting is the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, in a statement by the National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko.
The group said that the frequent and intermittent releases back into the society of terrorists with their hands drenched with the blood of innocent children, women and the elderly without making them go through mandatory judicial punitive measures of the nation’s justice system is the most potential recruitment grounds for ISWAP and Boko Haram terrorist networks in Nigeria.
HURIWA repeated the call on President Buhari to fire his National Security Adviser, Major General Babagana Monguno (rtd) and rejig the hierarchies of the Armed Forces of Nigeria to reflect the Federal characters and to ensure that the status quo is not maintained.
Specifically, HURIWA recalled that on 29thth July 2020, a high-ranking and influential lawmaker at the National Assembly, Senator Ali Ndume, faulted the Federal Government’s amnesty for repentant Boko Haram insurgents.
The group stressed that the senator stated this following report of a repentant Boko Haram member, who killed his father, stole his wealth and disappeared after reintegration. The lawmaker representing Borno South in the National Assembly alleged that most insurgents who had recently integrated into the community had returned to their old ways. Ndume said the programme was unacceptable, calling on the government to stop.
HURIWA recalled that the Senate Committee Chairman on Army spoke then in a British Broadcasting Corporation Hausa programme monitored in Kaduna, just as he queried the rationale behind the government investing hugely in repentant insurgents. Ndume said rather than training Boko Haram that won’t appreciate it, those in the IDP camps should be trained in various trades and vocations.
The lawmaker said, “They are like Kharajites. Many among those released have since run away. They will never repent. The government should know what to do about them, but not reintroducing someone to you who has killed your parents or your relations.
“Not that he even apologised to you; he apologised to the government. His thinking was that the government has failed and that is why they are being pampered. This government’s programme is unacceptable to our people. The right thing is to stop it forthwith. “If there is the sincerity of purpose, those in the Internally Displaced Persons’ camps should be trained in various trades and vocations so that they can start life again.”
HURIWA recalled too that a widow, who was featured in the programme, berated the Federal Government for training repentant insurgents to be reintegrated into the community. She claimed that the insurgents killed her husband and now left with four children, wondering why the government was pampering the so-called repentant insurgents. She said, “This is hurting. They (Boko Haram) killed my husband in my presence. They killed my son. I am left suffering with four young orphans. Till death, I will never forget that day.”
HURIWA stated thus: “We in the organised civil rights advocacy community believe that the policy of releasing terrorists back into the society after they may have and indeed inevitably shed blood of the innocent citizens amounted to the highest grade of illegality on the part of President Muhammadu Buhari just as the Rights group stated that Nigeria is about the only place in the World whereby the government of the day has conveyed to terrorists the idea that they can kill as many citizens as their guns and bullets and bombs can deliver to them and for as long as they desire and then what they need to do to gain reprieve is to surrender to the Army and they get some periods of the so-called deradicalization programme paid for by the law-abiding taxpayers after which they will be reintegrated back into the society and most of them end up disappearing back to join the terrorists groups to relaunch vicious attacks on civilians and government-owned assets and men and officers of the Armed Forces of Nigeria. HURIWA blames the security tensions in Nigeria on the illegality of releasing detained terrorists back into society as repentant terrorists when it is a universal fact that as an ideology, terrorists will never drop their conviction to kill for their belief system unless they are drastically punished in the severest of ways through the legal process.
HURIWA also blasted the Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Lucky Irabor, who recently revealed that a total of 101 combatants comprising members of the Boko Haram and Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP) groups had been moved from detention facilities for de-radicalization.
Irabor, who briefed State House correspondents on the outcome of the National Security Council meeting held in Abuja on Friday, stressed that the military would sustain its tempo of fighting oil theft and other criminals in the country.
“Council was also briefed that a total of 101 ex-combatants were taken to Operation Safe Corridor and are currently undergoing the process of de-radicalization at the centre.
“These were people that have been in detention for several years; some of whom had served their jail terms.
“Others were awaiting trial but because of the long time they have been detained and in line with the procedures for handling anyone who have been involved with terrorism, they have to be moved to the centre,” he said.
HURIWA, which expressed sadness that the current administration is rather contributing to breeding terrorists by the implementation of the deradicalization programme, called on Nigerians to speak out loud and clear in condemnation of this abominable amnesty programme being granted to hardened terrorists even as the Rights group backs Senator Ndume’s position that terrorists are never ever going to repent unless they are subjected to the legal regime stipulating harsh punishment for criminal and murderous acts of terrorism.
HURIWA said the release of terrorists has also led to hyperinflation and the systematic collapse of the nation’s economy because investors, including foreign direct investors, have stopped coming into Nigeria just as the recent security alert level raised on Nigeria by the USA and over a dozen other Western nations has led to the fleeing of foreigners living and doing businesses in Nigeria including the cancellation of many international flights into Nigeria including but not limited to the British Airways just as Julius Berger suspended her operations in Nigeria as soon as Germany their home nation raised the security alert level for Nigeria and informed them of imminent attacks by terrorists in Nigeria.
