HURIWA Endorses Extension Of Emergency In North East
A civil society group with special interest in the promotion of rule of law-HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA [HURIWA] has endorsed the decision of President Good luck Jonathan to further extend the state of emergency in the three North Eastern states affected by the murderous attacks by armed terrorists of the banned Islamic group-Boko Haram-Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states.
In an exclusive statement made available to the News Agency of Nigeria [NAN] in reaction to the decision of the Nigerian Security Council which agreed that the Nigerian Federal Government should seek further extension of state of emergency with a view to tackling once and for all the devastating terrorism attacks targeting civilian soft targets and governmental and non-Governmental institutions in parts of the North East, the Rights group through the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director Miss Zainab Yusuf said the Federal Government's decision to extend the state of emergency finds support in several provisions of the Nigerian Constitution and would further promote the security and welfare of the Nigerian citizenry.
HURIWA stated thus; ''We challenge the Nigerian Government to also take an extraordinary measures to bring about an end to the spate of blood cuddling attacks against civilians and government officials and offices by the armed Islamic extremists. This emergency extension should not be like business-as-usual and must of necessity be used as a period to bring about the implementation and enforcement of carefully planned military and intelligence-driven activities to drive an effective wedge to the dare devilry of the armed terrorists.
Government must take extra ordinary military measures such as full blown declaration of war and also think of the possibility of inviting the African Union standing military force to join the recently formed Lake Chad basin military joint task force to battle these terrorists and bring the perpetrators of worse kinds of war crimes amongst them to trial before the International Criminal Court in The Hague Netherlands even as other measures to reintegrate those amongst the fighters with no blood in their hands into the society as meaningful members of the civil populace after undergoing meticulous deradicalisation trainings and orientations must be implemented.''