Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria [HURIWA] – a pro-democracy based Non-Governmental Organization has in the strongest possible terms condemned the alleged killings by suspected Fulani herdsmen of over three dozen villagers of Shonong village of Riyom Local Government Council of Plateau state.
The Rights group described the alleged mass killing as barbaric, primitive, reprehensible, despicable and odious, urging the Federal Government to rise to the occasion by ensuring that the suspected mass murderers that are staging these intermittent mass killings on the Plateau and other North central states targeted at farmers in the villages are arrested, prosecuted and sanctioned in the competent courts of law in compliance with section 6 of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria [as amended].
In a statement issued jointly by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media affairs director Miss. Zainab Yusuf, HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA [HURIWA] charged the Presidency to break up the vicious cycle of carefully plotted killings of villagers and farmers all around the North central and North west states in the recent periods by alleged mercenaries suspected to be Fulani herdsmen just as it reminded the President that the Federal Government’s abysmal failure to protect the lives and property of Nigerians in the North central as well as the North West especially in the Southern Kaduna segment of Kaduna state by compelling the operatives of the joint military task force stationed specifically in Plateau state to be professional in the conduct of their duties amounted to a monumental constitutional breach of the constitutionally guaranteed fundamental human right to life of the vulnerable Nigerians.
The group has therefore asked the President to disband the Plateau state-based military task force [JTF] and order the military division on the Plateau to be on the highest point of alert and also advise the Plateau state government to set up community-based armed security outfits to be drawn from members of the various communities and to be supervised closely by the Plateau state security council and he Presidency. HURIWA advocated that those to be constituted into the state-wide community security patrol teams must be men and women with clean records whose fingerprints and complete personality data must be stored in a manner that will make it easy for the state government to trace their whereabouts while going about their assigned special functions of ridding the state of foreign armed marauders who are bent on unleashing mass killings on the Plateau state.
HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA [HURIWA] reminded the Presidency of its earlier decision to begin the compilation of the various intra-communal and inter-communal killings that have happened in Plateau state since the advent of the current democratic dispensation with the objective of filing a petition in January 2015 at the International Criminal Court [ICC] in the Hague, Netherlands. The group has therefore charged President Jonathan to consult broadly with the hope of working out effective and efficient panacea to the cases of incessant mass violence in the affected states.
HURIWA stated that the inability of the joint military task force in Plateau state to uncover the gangs carrying out the incessant killings since two years after deployment shows that it lacks the professional competence and discipline to put a stop to the ugly development just as the Rights group canvassed adoption of an innovative but aggressive fool proof security measures to check the trend through the setting up a state-wide community-based armed security patrol units drawn from the members of the respective communities. HURIWA cited sections 220[1] and subsection 2 of the 1999 constitution [as amended] to back its call for the setting up by the Plateau state government of the community-based security outfit to battle the scourge of incessant invasion by armed foreign mercenaries.
Local news report stated that on Monday January 6th 2013, suspected armed Fulani herdsmen attacked Shinong village in Riyom local government council and killed nearly thirty persons and several others were injured even as the Plateau state based joint military task force has so far not arrested the culprits.
HURIWA lamented that the inability of the law enforcement agencies to apprehend and prosecute in courts the suspected mass killers in Plateau state over the last two years has foisted an atmosphere of impunity which fuels further and even more devastating vicious attacks targeted at the vulnerable villagers.
