HURIWA Warns against Suppressing Plateau Christmas Eve Terror Attack

Alex Enumah in Abuja

The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has warned the federal government and its security agencies against suppressing the Christmas eve coordinated terror attacks in Plateau State.
Over 200 villagers, mainly Christian natives, were reportedly killed and several houses burnt by marauding terrorists in 23 communities in Bokkos and Barkin-Ladi LGAs.

In a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko the rights group said, letting these huge body of criminality to go without arresting the perpetrators and sponsors was definitely a massive national security threat.

HURIWA said the signal from the public statements and actions of virtually all the service chiefs, including the Chief of Defence Staff and the National Security Adviser to the President, “show a notorious proclivity to sweep these crimes against humanity under the carpet of impunity.”

The group restated her conviction that the only reason terrorists have continued to attack soft targets and getting away with their crimes against humanity was because there was no consequences for offenders of the laws; accusing the government of tolerating impunity.

Onwubiko, therefore, called on the President and commander-in-chief of the armed forces of Nigeria to mandate his service chiefs, the CDS primarily and his National Security Adviser to set up a high powered body of intelligence officers, investigators and forensic criminologist within and outside the security agencies, to undertake the urgent task of trailing, arresting, prosecuting and legally obtaining closures and inevitable justice for the victims of the deadly attack.

Conversely,  HURIWA backed the position of Governor Caleb Mutfwang of Plateau State who believed and had professed in the media that the incessant attacks on the state were acts of terrorism, claiming security agents knew the masterminds.

“What I can tell you is the killings in Plateau and the attacks in recent times are pure acts of terrorism,” HURIWA quoted the governor as saying recently on Channels Television.