Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has raised alarm that the Nigeria Police Force and hired armed political thugs are working in concert with the approval of the presidency to disrupt and sabotage attempts by opposition parties, especially the coalition African Democratic Congress (ADC), from holding political meetings in most parts of the country.
HURIWA noted that the targeted attacks by armed thugs and the illegal and arbitrary restraining order by the Nigeria Police stopping peaceful meetings of ADC in Kaduna, Lagos and Imo States followed peculiar pattern of well-coordinated violence sponsored by the government and the APC governors.
A statement by Emmanuel Onwubiko, National Coordinator of HURIWA, said that the deliberate moves by the police and sponsored thugs especially in states controlled by the All Progressives Congress (APC) to disrupt the meetings of the ADC remain unacceptable, unlawful, undemocratic and must not be condoned in Nigeria.
HURIWA therefore called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to as a matter of lawful obligation, direct the Inspector-General of Police Mr. Kayode Egbetokun to desist from the ongoing police’s coordinated clampdown of opposition politicians.
HURIWA emphasised that democracy can only thrive in an atmosphere of live and let live, stressing that the President should take responsibility for any breach of peace constituted by armed political thugs sympathetic to the APC who are being deployed by state governments controlled by the APC in Lagos, Kaduna and Imo state to violently disrupt political meetings of the ADC.
The statement said; “Mr. President, HURIWA is a non-partisan organisation and we are patriotic pro-democracy organisation that wishes your government well. This is why we are raising this alarm so you Mr. President takes the needed decision to call the police and your governors to order.
“The chapter 4 of the Nigerian constitution clearly and unambiguously provided abundant provisions for citizens to enjoy their constitutionally protected and guaranteed fundamental freedoms including freedom to hold peaceful assembly,” it said.
HURIWA said that it strongly suspected that all the recently executed violent disruptions of political meetings of the opposition coalition ADC are one and the same, thus increasingly becoming clearer that both the police’s top hierarchy and the National secretariat of the APC and the APC governors are in a well-knitted and in communion to fund the carefully choreographed armed thugs and violent attacks against politicians of the opposition ADC who tried to hold conferences and or lawful meetings.
It also said; “The failure to stop these thugs and police from sabotaging democratic opposition politics is a colossal failure of the office of the president who is also the leader of the APC and the appointing authority of the Inspector-General of Police.
“These attacks are no coincidences, but masterfully coordinated, heavily funded by both the APC in close and mutual partnership with the Nigeria Police Force which has behaved like the armed wing of the ruling APC,” HURIWA stated.
