The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has called on Nigerians to step up their collective and individual moral and motivational support to the officers and men of the armed forces currently engaged in the battle against Boko Haram Islamist insurgents, even as the Federal Government has been charged to specify a day in 2015, when it will honour some combatants who excelled on the battle front, as a way of boosting their morale.

HURIWA in a statement signed jointly by the National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, and the Media Affairs Director Miss Zainab Yusuf, and made available to News Express, condemned Monday’s suicide bombing at Boys Secondary School, Potiskum, Yobe State, in which over 50 students were killed by suspected Boko Haram terrorists and berated the Yobe State Government for doing almost nothing to prevent this unwarranted attack; even after the neighbouring Gombe State had earlier shut down all public and private schools immediately after the bomb attack at the public bus park.

The group also upbraided the Yobe State Government for the abysmal state of the health infrastructure in that state, which has compounded the situation of the victims of the recent bomb attack, as can be conspicuously seen from photographic evidence widely circulated in the popular Nigerian press.

The HURIWA officials disclosed that their attention was drawn to the ugly state of medical facilities in parts of Yobe State by some concerned citizens who called in to express their disgust at what they described as ‘primitive standards of the health infrastructure.’ The group, therefore, called on the Yobe State executive to take verifiable and concrete measures to re-equip public hospitals to be in a good state to treat and handle emergency cases that have arisen from the unfortunate spate of violent terrorism targeting civilians.

“'We hereby call on all Nigerians to step up our patriotic support for the soldiers as they collectively wage the war against terrorists. The top military commanders must stop complaining and engage in a more determined and effective combat against these murderous terrorists. We also call on the Nigerian government not to relent in the current resolve to equip the military with state-of-the-art combat weapons and military hardware, because the sacred fact remains that any nation that allows external aggressors and internal rebels to take over any part of her territory will sooner or later find out that it has lost grip of her sovereignty as an independent political entity. The rest of the global community will pay less attention and respect to it.

“The Nigerian Government must consistently be put under intense pressure by all patriotic Nigerians in the most civilised and constructive methods: to equip and train the military and provide all the enabling environment, including the introduction of heavy material compensations for war heroes and construction of houses for families of all the fallen soldiers who fell on the line of duty in the ongoing prosecution of counter-terrorism war. The fund for the building of the war heroes’ houses should be drawn from the ‘Victims of Terrorism Support Fund’ recently inaugurated by the President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan. A national monument, with their names engraved, must also be constructed in any part of the Federal Republic of Nigeria; to remind generations yet unborn of the enormous sacrifice rendered by the members of the Nigerian armed forces and police currently waging the war on terror.”

•Photo shows Nigerian troops engaged in the war against Boko Haram.

Update news