HURIWA wants concerted National effort on Kidnappings
President Good luck Jonathan has been called upon to make effective crime fighting all across Nigeria and especially the increasing and distressful trend of armed kidnappings in the Southern parts of Nigeria as a major focus of his administration in the new year 2014 to save the citizenry from the spate of violent killings and also save the South East especially from the deliberate deindustrialization that the spate of armed kidnappings by freelance armed hoodlums have unleashed relentlessly in the outgoing year. HURIWA also wants the Federal Government t realistically tackle youth unemployment which remains a major threat to the continuous existence of Nigeria.
The governors of the Southern states of Nigeria have also been advised to desist from playing excessive politics but concentrate on good governance modules by actively and jointly working together to implement effective and fool -proof panaceas to the increasing wave of armed kidnappings and violent crimes in their respective states. These issues formed the fulcrum of the media statement issued to journalists by a pro-democracy Non-Governmental Organization- HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA [HURIWA] to mark the New Year and signed jointly by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Director Miss. Zainab Yusuf.
The Rights group urged the Federal Government to decisively tackle the burning issue of the perennial non-performance of the Nigerian Police Force [NPF] by implementing the best of all the previously documented recommendations on how to comprehensively reform the moribund and non-professional Nigerian Police Force [NPF] carried out previously by several Presidential committees on Police Reforms. HURIWA said history and posterity will be harsh on the current federal administration if it fails to positively transform the fundamentals of the Nigerian Police Force to ensure that all the several bad eggs are weeded out and for efficient and effective highly educated and crime free young upwardly Nigerian youth to be recruited to form the core of the members and hierarchy of the new Nigerian Police Force that will be adequately trained and equipped to combat the high crime rate all across Nigeria.
The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria [HURIWA] said in the last two and half years of the current federal administration the Nigerian Government has failed to positively reform the Nigerian Police force and has continued with the lip service being paid to the issue of ensuring that only merit, professionalism and competence are the yardsticks for deciding who heads the Nigerian Police Force. HURIWA accused the Federal Government under President Good luck Jonathan of playing politics with the texture, colour and nature of the hierarchy of the Nigerian Police Force which has further led to serious credibility deficit and total lack of crime fighting capacity of the current Nigerian Police Force. HURIWA also carpeted the National Assembly for its spectacular failure to use the opportunity of the yet to be completed constitutional amendment process to introduce new provisions in the new constitution to allow for the creation of state police as one way of shoring up and empowering the police to effectively tackle the violent crime rates all across Nigeria and especially the incidences of armed kidnappings which have denied the South East of the much needed industrialization and creation of employment opportunities for the idle but educated youth of the South East.
HURIWA stated thus; “On behalf of the members of the human rights community and all men of goodwill, we appeal once more for the umpteenth time to the President of Nigeria to reform the moribund Nigerian Police Force [NPF] and weed out all bad eggs that have captured the hierarchy and membership of the armed police force to make sure that crime is confronted frontally. Nigeria needs a professional police that abhors extra-legal killings of suspects and indulges in bribery and corruption. We are worried that violent kidnappings are becoming serious threats to the corporate and territorial integrity of Nigeria. The Nigerian Government must fortify the security of the international borders to ensure that sophisticated arms importers are curtailed and stopped in their tracks before they infiltrate Nigeria with small arms and weapons of mass destruction. The current Nigerian Police as its currently constituted can not guarantee a crime free Nigeria because most operatives of the Nigerian Police Force are criminals whose criminal past are neglected and they are allowed to remain in the Nigerian Police Force to perpetuate crimes and criminality.”
The Rights Group further stated thus; ” The Southern Governors must unite together under one forum and work out implementable measures to wipe out the cases of violent kidnappings so as to allow willing industrialists to invest in the predominantly marginalized and underdeveloped South Eastern Nigeria. Kidnappings must be treated the same way as the insurgents and terrorists in the North East waging war against the Nigerian state”.