HURIWA To NSA Ribadu: Terrorists Not Daring Tinubu But, Our Corporate Existence

Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has advised the National Security Adviser to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu,  Alhaji Nuhu Ribadu, to as a matter of nationl interest and concern, keep political theatrics aside while confronting matters of National security interest.

HURIWA particularly faulted the open display of partisan politics by the NSA, Nuhu Ribadu for viewing activities of terrorists as mere ‘rivals’ of President Tinubu, who he said are ‘daring’ President Tinubu.

The human rights organization stressed that it was an irreparable fallacy and a distorted thinking for Ribadu to assume that the killings, maiming Nigerians in different parts of the country by the armed non-state actors were just ‘daring’ the person of President Tinubu.

HURIWA lamented the introduction of political showmanship into the national conversations about terrorists, bandits, outlaws and well-armed non-state actors by the National Security Adviser.

These were contained in a statement by comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, National Coordinator of HURIWA, in which he further noted that national security interest go beyond mere political CIRCUS SHOW’.

HURIWA noted that NSA, said on Wednesday that nobody dares President Bola Tinubu and remains the same, warning the new terror group, Lakurawas, of making the mistake of invading parts of the northwest.

It further said that this came on a day the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Christopher Musa, deployed a contingent of soldiers to the troubled Augie Local Government Area of Kebbi State where no fewer than 17 people at Mera village were killed by members of the terror group.

Ribadu, who spoke at the Comptroller-General of Customs conference in Abuja, vowed that the Federal Government would eliminate the group shortly for daring the President.

HURIWA said that Ribadu, who represented President Tinubu at the conference, said; “Lakurawa, or whatever they call themselves, have made a mistake. This is Nigeria of 2024, we will finish them. No one dares Tinubu and wins. No one fights Tinubu and wins.

“The terrorists that were in many parts of the country, we are killing. There is silence in many parts where they were operating. Go to where Boko Haram was operating, there is silence. They have fled to Niger Republic; many are surrendering”.

HURIWA however strongly disagreed with the position of the National Security Adviser who seemed to be equating the continuous bloody attacks by terrorists and the invasion of Sokoto and Kebbi by a terrorist group known as Lakurawas, as a direct daring of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu which has reduced the war on terror to a personalised level.

It stressed that the personalised approach by the NSA was absolutely uncalled for because the terrorists are unleashing violence and threatening the corporate existence of Nigeria and not just daring President Tinubu.

HURIWA told NSA Ribadu that Nigeria is bigger than anyone, including the person holding a tenured office as the President and therefore any attempt to elevate the person of the president to that of a DEITY, is absolutely unacceptable and erroneous.

HURIWA said; “To be candid, we think sir, that as the NSA to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, that you know very well that our security challenges are not personal issues directed at the person of President Tinubu.

“Our security challenges threaten our continuous existence as a nation irrespective of whoever is in office as the President. The most appropriate professional approach is to avoid the use of political rhetoric in addressing security matters because whereas the President will serve out his constitutional term limit and quit, the sovereign state of Nigeria would remain.

“Those who attack Nigerians are not rivals to the President politically, as the NSA’s most recent statement sounded, attackers of Nigerians are enemies of Nigeria as a political entity,” it said.

The human rights group also faulted the NSA who claimed that there is quiet in the South East of Nigeria, adding that President Tinubu has failed to restore genuine peace and tranquility in the South East by failing to free Mazi Nnamdi Kanu the leader of the Indigenous peoples of Biafra (IPOB) even when respected leaders of the Igbo ethnicity made genuine entreaties to the President.

“The silence that Nuhu Ribadu said exists in his ‘imaginary South East’ is just the silence of the graveyard because insecurity is pervasive in the South East today,” it said.