The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has called on the Nigerian political class to declare a general period of national truce and quietude.

HURIWA has, therefore, called on national party leaders and strategic national political stakeholders to convoke a self-funded national political peace conference to sign a memorandum of understanding on the enforcement of the national period of peace, quiet and tranquility to be moderated by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

In the thinking of the pro-democracy rights body, at this period of general state of panic, uncertainty and apprehension created by the dare-devil activities of criminal terrorists and a range of armed murderous hoodlums rampaging across all spectrum of the Nigerian society and especially in the terror-torn north-eastern part of Nigeria, the nation needs all the combined forces it can mobilise to progressively defeat once and for all these grave threats to the territorial integrity and the sovereign rights of Nigeria and Nigerians. The group wants all politicians who truly love Nigeria to bury the hatchet and combine forces with the central government to fight reactionary elements seeking to destroy Nigeria from the world map through terrorism.

HURIWA also appealed to the Presidency to direct its retinue of aides to desist from issuing messages that only create further disunity and polarisation of Nigerians along political divides. “Presidential aides must not turn their offices to partisan war fronts, since they are called to offer national service to the fatherland through the office of the President of all Nigerians elected by the electorate that cut across all party affiliations.

“It is unthinkable that politicians are apparently chasing after rats even while the Nigerian house is on fire. This attitude is satanic and reprehensible, because if nothing concrete is done to join forces with the current Federal Government to wage result-oriented battle against the armed Islamic insurgents, soon we may not have a country to call our own,” HURIWA charged.

This was contained in a statement made available to News Express and endorsed jointly by the National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director, Miss Zainab Yusuf. HURIWA urged national leaders of all major political parties in Nigeria to immediately hold a national conference in a very quiet part of the country, far away from the boisterous nation's capital of Abuja, to brainstorm on strategies and practical modalities for the immediate but enforceable declaration of national period of truce, quiet and unity, which major component would include the cessation of all subterranean plots to impeach state governors by members of the 36 state houses of assembly for the time being.

Besides, HURIWA also called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), as the only statutory body recognised by the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1999 as amended), to monitor how the registered political parties are administered, and immediately call to order with a threat of sanction, the national spokespersons of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) and compel them to stop making seditious statements capable of truncating the current democratic atmosphere in the country.

“INEC must act fast and be decisive in ensuring that political parties registered under the Nigerian Constitution are not converted to weapons of generating national disunity and war among the different segments and fault lines inherent in the Nigerian state. INEC must save the Nigerian democracy from collapsing under the heavy fire power of hate messages that are spewing out from the offices of the national publicity secretaries of both the Peoples Democratic Party and the opposition All Progressives Congress. The office of the National Security Adviser to the President should also be concerned about the ugly turn of hate messages that are churned out by the two leading political parties of Nigeria, because these divisive and emotional sentiments are clear and present danger to Nigeria’s national security.”

Speaking further on proposed means of reaching what it calls national period of quiet and truce, the rights group affirmed: “The national political conference of political parties which should be self-funded should also involve members and/or key leaders of the respective state houses of assembly across the nation together with the officials of the Presidency, such as political and inter-party affairs special advisers.

“We call on all former heads of state to rally round the current federal administration to genuinely work out effective strategy for ending the spate of mass killings by the armed Islamic insurgents, and also to bring about national reconciliation and peace among the divergent groups of Nigerians, especially with the ongoing anti-Nigerian campaign by a range of groups including ethnic and religious affiliated groups in the north and south, for the introduction in their respective home fronts of series of policies and measures that will curtail the constitutionally guaranteed fundamental human rights of all Nigerian citizens such as freedom of movement and freedom to live wherever they chose to without molestation. We implore the political class to stop playing with fire by their current postures of divisiveness and public statements that are targeted at overheating the polity and creating further divisions among the Northern and Southern Nigerian people.”

•Photo shows HURIWA National Coordinator, Comrade Onwubiko.