Human Rights Writers’ Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has asked President Goodluck Jonathan to disband the Alhaji Kabiru Tanimu Turaki-led presidential committee on Dialogue and peaceful resolution of the security challenges in the North. The rights group described the panel as a group of persons groping in the dark with no proper workable mechanism on how to bring about end to the bloody insurgency in the North.

HURIWA also asked President Jonathan “to learn practical lessons from the prompt, focused, decisive and rule of law-motivated anti-terrorism measures adopted by the United Kingdom’s government in the wake of the recent hacking to death in the street of Woolwich, South East London, of a serving British soldier, Mr. Lee Right, by two suspected Islamic terrorists – who both have Nigerian origin (including one terrorism suspect identified as a convert to Islam Mr. Michael Adebolaja).”

In a statement issued today in the Nigerian capital Abuja, HURIWA accused President Jonathan of being “consistently inconsistent and for notoriously being in the habit of prevarication and indecisiveness in the fight against terrorism even as it faulted the conflicting statements from government on the presidential directive to release suspected armed terrorists without prosecution.”

The rights group in the statement signed by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and National Director of media Affairs, Miss. Zainab Yusuf, cautioned the Nigerian Government not to give conflicting signals that show the Nigerian State as negotiating with outlaws and terrorists that have consistently waged bloody war against the ordinary people of Nigeria in their places of worship.

“Are we suffering from collective amnesia that we have forgotten so soon how innocent children, women and men were massacred in the Madala, Catholic Church near Abuja and several other Churches in Yobe, Borno, Kaduna, Kano and Zaria?” HURIWA, asked. “What is the essence of operating a constitution that clearly spells out the need for the rule of law to be adhered to strictly and why is this government institutionalising anarchy and impunity by expressly showing willingness to compromise for purely political reasons with mass murderers who even kill moderate Muslims at will and have consistently killed and decimated Nigeria’s security operatives?” the group further asked.

On why President Jonathan must disband the Boko Haram amnesty committee headed by the Minister of Special Duties, Alhaji Turaki, HURIWA said the recent confession by the panel that it was not aware of how to connect with the leaders of the insurgency in the North has shown that it would amount to monumental waste of public fund to keep the committee even with this glaring evidence of abysmal failure.

“Why is Nigeria’s tax payers’ money being used to finance this meaningless and fruitless misadventure beautifully named as the Presidential committee on dialogue and peaceful resolution of security challenges in the North. Is this another job for the boys?” HURIWA queried.

According to the rights group, “We have consistently opposed this charade and contraption set up by President Jonathan in the name of working to achieve an end to the vicious and bloody terrorism in the North because we have always known that there is no short cut to ending impunity and terrorism. We have always believed that the best way to end impunity is to effectively activate the mechanism of law enforcement and to ensure that Nigerians or citizens of other nations who bear arms to inflict pains and violence on Nigerians and the State, are arrested promptly, prosecuted in the competent court of law and punished for the crimes against humanity.

“We therefore view the recent call by the presidential northern dialogue committee on Nigerians to connect them with the masterminds of the insurgency in the North as a clear evidence that the panel ought not to have been set up in the first place and indeed should be disbanded without further waste of tax payers’ money.”

HURIWA condemned Wednesday’s terrorism attack in London perpetrated by people of Nigerian parentage and praised the UK Government for confronting terrorism strongly using the due process of the law.

•Photo shows President Jonathan and members of the Boko Haram Amnesty Committee.

Update news