Deborah: HURIWA Threatens to Drag Tambuwal to Int’l Community

•Seeks travel ban, accuses police of halting prosecution

Alex Enumah in Abuja

As part of efforts to getting justice for the late Miss Deborah Yakubu, a Christian student, who was killed by a mob for alleged blasphemy in Sokoto State, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), yesterday, threatened to drag Governor Aminu Tambuwal of the state before the international community.

HURIWA specifically said, it would be asking the international community to “place a visa ban” on the governor so as to compel him to take necessary action that would bring the alleged masterminds as well as perpetrators of the heinous crime.

Deborah, a 200-level Home Economics student of Shehu Shagari College of Education in Sokoto, North-West Nigeria, was murdered in May this year by some religious fundamentalists for alleged blasphemy.

Speaking with journalists in Abuja, HURIWA’S National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, lamented that nearly seven months after, nothing substantive seemed to have been achieved, just as he accused the police of abandoning prosecution of culprits.

“HURIWA calls on the police to do the right thing and resume the prosecution of the prime suspects in the matter. The legal system must ensure stiff punishment for the culprits to send strong signals that Nigeria is not a Banana Republic, where carnivorous entities showcase animalistic tendencies,” it said.

HURIWA also faulted Sunday’s defence of presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, over his initial tweet on the murder on the grounds that he did not approve the tweet before it was released.

“I asked the tweet to be deleted, because I normally approve every tweet. So, since I didn’t approve it, I said, ‘delete it”, Atiku had explained during a television programme last Sunday.

But Onwubiko described Atiku’s defence as “bad image laundering efforts”, accusing the former Vice President of tacitly supporting Deborah’s death.

While stressing that the late Deborah would always remain in the subconscious of Nigerians of good conscience, irrespective of their religious affiliation, the group urged the electorate to  “watch out for leaders with tendencies to have blasphemy-related killings increase under them and reject them with their thumbprint at the ballot next year.”

HURIWA, has therefore disclosed that it would declare Deborah a martyr for human rights, because her killing was unjustifiable under any laws, locally and internationally.