Democracy Day: HURIWA Asks Buhari To Release All Political Prisoners Including Nnamdi Kanu

This year's Democracy Day anniversary is in the considered thinking of a prominent pro-Democracy Non-governmental organisation - HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA ) without any progressive milestones given that in the last one year the government has clamped into detention dissenting voices and foisted multiple charges that aren't sustainable if the judiciary is truly independent.

HURIWA has accused the government of sending secret police to bug and monitor movements and telephone conversations of credible civil society leaders including the National Coordinator of HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA. The group said government must respect the constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights as enshrined in Chapter Four of the constitution if we ever hope to make democracy sustainable and viable.

The group has therefore condemned the continuous detention and trial of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and the Director of the Europe Based Radio Biafra Mr Nnamdi Kanu; the failure of the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to respect the due process of the law in the cases involving such political opponents like erstwhile Director of Media of the Peoples Democratic Party Presidential Campaign Council and firmer Aviation Minister Chief Femi Fani-Kayode; the immediate past National Security Adviser to the President Colonel Sambo Dasuki (rtd).

Besides HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has also lambasted the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Department of State Service (DSS) of harassing and intimidating perceived political opponents of the All Progressives Congress led Federal Government.

Corollary HURIWA said DSS and EFCC have begun manhunt and harassment of leaders of Non-governmental groups and independent civil society stakeholders and the judges of the nation's Court system.

EFCC has particularly being accused of deploying crude and primitive tactics including Gestapo style military strategies to psycho-physically intimidate judges by threatening to keep their financial transactions under security watch just so that the judges can do the bidding of the Federal Government.

HURIWA stated thus: "In January this year two Courts granted bail to the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) Mr Nnamdi Kanu including a Federal High Court in Abuja but the President personally granted extensive media interviews whereby he prejudiced and intimidated judges to steer clear of granting bails to the duo of NnamdiKanu and Colonel Sambo Dasuki for purportedly committing in his words serious offences."

" Ever since that Presidential Media Chat the Courts and the Judges have consistently failed to use its powers ubder section 6 of the Constitution to compel the Executive Arm of government to comply with the bail orders just as another branch of the Federal High Court in one of the multiple charges framed against Mr Nnamdi Kanu refused to give him bail just as the Court of Appeal has followed the body language of Mr President by affirming the denial of bail to Mr Nnamdi Kanu whose so -called offence is for calling for the actualisation of a separate State out of Nigeria to be called Biafra to be composed of the South East if a referendum agrees with this aspiration".

HURIWA said it considers Mr Nnamdi Kanu a political prisoner who should be released forthwith and all those false charges of treasonable felony dropped because all international laws supports democratic granting of independent statehood to any homogeneous group of indigenous people that democratically votes to become an independent nation.

Moreover, HURIWA maintained that the Universal Declaration of Human rights guarantees the Rights to Freedom of speech including the Rights to agitate for separate Statehood. The group said the dispositions of President Muhammadu Buhari showed in different public events and his body language including the campaign of calumny against judges as coordinated by both the EFCC and DSS the duo of Mr Nnamdi Kanu and Colonel Sambo Dasuki may not get fair hearing given the unprecedented state sponsored harassment of the judiciary by the Executive Arm of government.

HURIWA has also condemned the continuous illegal detention of Chief Femi Fani-Kayode and demanded his immediate release or he be charged to competent courts of law if the EFCC has any sustainable charges against him.

The Rights group condemned the selective investigation of the campaign funding of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party whereas all allegations of heist of public fund against some APC erstwhile governors who sponsored President Muhammadu Buhari’s election last year have been disregarded by EFCC.

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Articles by Emmanuel Onwubiko