Us States Department: Huriwa Urges Action On Mass Killings:

The reports from the United States of America's State's department classifying Nigeria under President Muhammadu Buhari as a COUNTRY OF PARTICULAR CONCERN(CPC) has received the plundit of a leading Civil Rights Advocacy group-HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) which believed that the global indictment has come at a better time considering the fact that the Nigerian government has willfully failed and refused to arrest, prosecute and punish the sponsors and actors in the serial mass killings of farmers, Christian worshippers and villagers by armed Fulani herdsmen for over three years running since the current administration came on board in 2015. HURIWA has also asked Workd leaders to mount pressure on the Nigerian government to render proper account of the number of armed kidnappers and bandits rounded up and paraded in the media by the Nigerian police Force but who have till date not made to face justice. The Rights group said it is also shocking that over three months since a Taraba based armed kidnapper Alhaji Hamisu Wadume and a serving Army Captain were indicted for killing three armed police crime investigators there are concerted effort to sweep the heinous crime under the carpet.

HURIWA which appraised the comprehensive and forensic human and religious rights violations from all around the World by the United States of America's State's department stated that the majority of Nigerians especially the survivors and relatives of the direct victims of the serial mass murders by armed Fulani herdsmen would wish that the international community including the United States of America, the European Union, Canada, Germany and the International Court of Justice in the Hague Netherlands to take decisive actions and enforce measures to compel the rounding up of all the suspected killers roaming freely in the streets of Nigeria so the international Criminal Court in The Hague Netherlands prosecute and punish them for these heinous crimes against humanity or alternatively the United States of America as a World power should institute a suit at the International Court of Justice against the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration for tolerating crimes against humanity and crimes that are deemed as genocide carried out by armed Fulani herdsmen which gained support by some top government officials including the ministers of defence and interior affairs from 2015 till 2019. The Rights group said several top ranking government officials working for President Muhammadu Buhari openly backed the activities of the dare devil armed Fulani herdsmen which which they justified by criticising some States like Benue and Taraba for legislating against open grazing of CATTLE by Herdsmen.

HURIWA recalled that the Presidency has failed to either set up judicial commissions of inquiry or to cause the immediate arrest of all the suspected mass killers who masquerades as armed herdsmem to perpetrate dastardly crimes of blood cuddling violence unleashed on selected Christian communities in Southern Kaduna, Plateau, Adamawa, Taraba and Benue States including the killings of several Catholic Priests in Benue state and their worshippers and the systematic kidnappings of Christian Pastors in Kaduna State by suspected armed Islamists and armed Fulani herdsmen which the central and state governments have failed and refused to handle with efficiency and effectiveness because of their faith or their Ethno cultural backgrounds.

HURIWA has consistently blamed the current administration under the Katsina born President of sidelining Southerners and Christians in the composition of the hierarchies of the nation's internal security architectures. The Rights group said the lopsided appointments of only Hausa/Fulani Moslem Northerners to head strategic internal security institutions in a secular society like Nigeria against the constitutionally guaranteed Federal Character Principles enshrined in section 14(3) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended).

HURIWA stated that: "We are exceedingly pleased that the United States of America has belatedly acted to challenge the current administration in Nigeria on its failure to arrest and prosecute mass murderers. We are happy to read from the World's strategic super power nation that no country, entity, or individual will be able to persecute people of faith with impunity, in the same words of the United States’s secretary of state Mike Pompeo as said in the statement from the USA even as he added that these religious freedom designations show that when faith is attacked, the USA will act. May we appeal to the USA to immediatelly designate Nigeria as such and not just issue a threat that Nigeria the so called West African giant may be designated Country of Particular Concern (CPC) under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 if religious persecutions continue, the State Department said. We are of the opinion that the USA should be emphatic in classifying Nigeria under Buhari as CPC immediately because as we are told that although the State Department said in a statement that Nigeria is on the SWL list, a report published by the United States Commission for International Religious Freedom showed the country is already classified as a CPC.. Atrocities targeted religious minorities of Christianity in the North have happened and President Muhammadu Buhari overlooked these vicious criminal acts of killings and gemocides".

HURIWA said: "It is a fact as stated by the United States report that continued systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of freedom of religion or belief in Nigeria should have earned the country a place on the official CPC list since 2009 just as the Rights group said it is well placed that the United States Government accused the Nigerian government of tolerating violence and discrimination based on religion or belief, and suppression of the freedom to manifest religion or belief because as first hand eye witnesses, we verily believe that the massive killings that took place under the watch of the current government have been swept under the carpets of impunity and lawlessness by the ministers and all relevant law enforcement agencies in Nigeria because of the Religious and Ethnic sentiments that the killers share same affiliations with the occupants of all top government and defence positions in Nigeria since 2015. "

"To say that religious sectarian violence increased in 2018, with Muslims and Christians attacked based on their religious and ethnic identity as indicated in The American report is to state The obvious. The Nigerian federal government failed to implement effective strategies to prevent or stop such violence or to hold perpetrators accountable as disclosed in the United States' report and these are factually accurate and can't be contradicted by any body of superior arguments or body of empirical knowledge. These are the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We plead with the US GOVERNMENT to impose sanctions on the federal government headed by the former military leader Muhammadu Buhari ".