The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has said
that the attack by armed herdsmen targeting the peaceful Catholic
Church’s facilities and the shooting of priest and students training for
priesthood shows that the attacks have switched from inter-ethnic
terrorism to a full blown persecution of Christians of Northern origin.
This was as the rights group insisted that, “We are simply deceiving
ourselves by celebrating democracy day when Nigerians in their thousands
have been gruesomely despatched to the great World beyond by armed
Fulani herdsmen who are being protected by the powers that be currently
in Nigeria.”
Rector of the minor seminary in Jalingo, Taraba State capital, Rev.
Fr. Emmanuel Atsue, had disclosed that during an attack on the
institution yesterday, sophisticated arms-bearing Fulani “shot sporadically
at the Rector’s residence, broke window glasses in the process,
(litered live bullets were collected by police) windscreen of one of the
vehicles belonging to one of the priests, they shot and injured one of
the priests Rev. Fr. Cornelius kobah on the leg, beat up Fr. Stephen
Bakari.”
Reacting, the rights group said the attack on the seminary “coming
barely two weeks after two catholic priests and 17 worshippers were
killed by armed Fulani herdsmen in Benue state shows an escalation of
the terror activities which should necessitate the immediate declaration
of Miyetti Allah cattle owners association as a terrorist group”.
HURIWA spoke in a statement issued by its national coordinator,
Emmanuel Onwubiko, which said, “The failure of President Muhammadu
Buhari to immediately reorganize his failed and toxic internal security
team made up totally of Hausa/Fulani Moslems who have failed to
effectively check the unprecedented bloody attacks by armed Fulani
herdsmen targeting farmers and Christians in the North, signposts the
rapid collapse of Nigeria under the direct watch of President Muhammadu
Buhari.
“This therefore calls for immediate soul searching on the part of
President Muhammadu Buhari so he can salvage what is left of a rapidly
collapsing Nigerian nation State.
“The nation is now more than ever so divided alongside
Ethno-religious configurations even as it has become a stark reality
that some persons are by the distorted and illegal discriminatory
policies of government, made to perceive themselves as second class
citizens who are not trustworthy enough in the opinion of President
Muhammadu Buhari to hold such strategic ational security positions now
exclusively and unconstitutional occupied by Nigerians of same religious
and Ethnicity with President Muhammadu Buhari.”
The rights group wondered why the United Nations Security Council and
the Authority of the Heads of States of the African Union were watching
passively as a section of Nigerians appear “armed and motivated to
slaughter other citizens which may snowball into a genocide of
monumental scale soon”.
It called on the organised civil society community and the
Faith-based bodies to begin series of civil disobedience activities to
compel an immediate change on the part of the Presidency to either stop
the attacks, prosecute and sanction the mass murderers or resign within
two weeks should these bandits and terrorists not stopped from carrying
out the well coordinated Ethnic and Religious cleansing and genocides.
“For the avoidance of doubts, a clear nexus had since been
established between the violent attackers and the leadership of the
Miyetti Allah cattle owners Association in most parts of Nigeria. The
case of Benue, Taraba, Plateau and Kaduna states is as clear as the sun
light because the organized spate of attacks were unleashed as soon as
this terror organization publicly threatened to frustrate the
implementation of the anti-open grazing law in Benue State, or protested
the theft of certain number of cows by the indigenous people who are
mostly Christians and farmers.
“We have in the last three years asked the Muhammadu Buhari’s
government to dismantle the nepotistic internal security team so as to
compose a pan-Nigerian Internal Security team made up of officers from
all parts of Nigeria and to declare Miyetti Allah Cattle Owners
Association a terror organization, but President Buhari has refused.
Now, most Southern Nigerians see the armed Fulani herdsmen as state
sponsored terrorists.
“We totally condemn the attack on the seminary in Taraba and most
particularly, condemned the killing of over 30 people in a part of
Zamfara state in North West of Nigeria. These attacks and killings show
that Nigeria currently has no efficient leadership in the national
security team and no amount of dollars granted these incompetent heads
of security agencies can stop these attacks. We totally condemn the
National Assembly for proposing to give more cash to the hierarchies of
the security team who have in the lady three years failed to perform. No
amount of cash can change a compromised and an incompetent officer to
turn a new leaf. They must be dismissed and prosecuted for criminal
negligence.
“The only option open to President Buhari is to declare Miyetti Allah
Cattle Owners Association as a terrorist group and to arrest, prosecute
the leaders in the competent courts of law. The direct consequence of
the continuous failure to act decisively, is that Nigeria will slide
into total anarchy and chaos because Nigerians will not stand by and let
armed Fulani slaughter all of them,” the statement read.