DSS Has Affiliated With Fulani Herdsmen—Says HURIWA

HURIWA asks Nigerians to Hold DSS Responsible Should Any Reprisal Happen In The North

By Emmanuel Onwubiko

A pro-Democracy Non-governmental ORGANISATION- HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has condemned as recklessly insensitive and inciteful, the unsubstantiated claim at the weekend by the Department of State Service blaming the Europe Based Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) over the alleged disappearance and killing of suspected Fulani herdsmen few days back in Abia State South East of Nigeria.

With this phenomenally irrational statement attributed to someone whom the Nigerian media identified as the Spokesperson of the Department of State Service and the hierarchy of the DSS has yet to dissociate itself from this reckless and warlike claims, the Rights group said the impression been created is that that hitherto government security agency has been hijacked by interest affiliated to the Fulani herdsmen.

HURIWA has therefore called on the National Assembly, the United Nations Secretary General Mr Banki Moon and the African Union to immediately call President Muhammadu Buhari to infuse independence and professional competence into the hierarchy of the Department of State Service which has come under increased criticism from a cross section of Nigerians for its current partisanship and sectional pursuit of a narrow agenda of Ethnic imperialism of the Fulani Herdsmen.

"We are shocked beyond belief that an agency of government funded by us the tax payers and good law abiding Nigerians is progressively deteriorating in standards, ethics and operational independence. Why is it that since the current political dispensation whereby the Fulani ethnic group produced the key officials of the National government that ruthlessly armed Fulani terrorists are on rampage killing, maiming and destroying several lives and property and both the police and the DSS have conveniently looked the other way whilst these monumental destruction take place all across Nigeria? Why has it taken the DSS the alleged disappearance and killing of five Fulani herdsmen by some satanic unknown hoodlums for the DSS to issue this hurriedly written media statement making a very vexatious and irrational claims that lack any scientific and evidence based independent proof? This is the saddest period of our national life. Mr. President must call the management of the DSS to order to comply with constitutional codes of conduct and work for all Nigerians and not turn her operational attention to only matters of the welfare of just one ethnic group out of the over 300 Nigerian Ethnic nationalities."

The Department of State Service (DSS), Nigeria’s domestic spy agency, said the graves were found in Umuanyi forest in Abia state, home to the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) movement.

It issued a statement late Saturday accusing IPOB members of playing a “heinous role” in the abduction of five Hausa-Fulani residents, although the claims were dismissed by another Biafran group.

“The abducted men were later discovered at the Umuanyi forest, Abia state, where they were suspected to have been killed by their abductors and buried in shallow graves, amidst 50 other shallow graves of unidentified persons,”spokesman Tony Opuiyo said in the statement.

HURIWA said the statement lacks any empirical evidence and amounted to a fallacy of hasty conclusion which may spark off reprisal against the Igbo in the North. "We call on the UN to impress it on President Muhammadu Buhari to take measures to prevent any reprisals which this insidious and highly dangerous statement of DSS can cause especially in the far North that has witnessed several pogroms against Igbo".