HURIWA To Tinubu: Stop Unleashing Intolerable Economic Hardships On Nigerians

Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has declared that while it endorsed President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s call for immediate cessation of war in Gaza, the Nigerian President should also declare immediate ceasefire on his government’s continuous unleashing of intolerably harsh economic hardships on Nigerians.

The Rights group said the best ceasefire call is for President Tinubu to declare an immediate cessation of the infliction of immeasurable economic sufferings through poorly crafted and hurriedly implemented economic policies.

HURIWA particularly said that President Tinubu ought to know that there are millions of Nigerian children who are currently suffering violence, hunger, deprivation, poverty, and sudden deaths like the children of Palestinians in Gaza.

The rights organization in a statement by Emmanuel Onwubiko, its National Coordinator, on Tuesday, November 12, 2024, attributed the heightened state of poverty and deprivation been suffered by millions of Nigerians to the government’s devaluation of the naira and the constant hikes in the pump price of petrol.

HURIWA also said that the biting economic adversities unleashed by the devaluation of the naira and the constant hikes in the costs of living and of petrol have turned millions of Nigerian household into destitution, hunger, starvation and deprivation just like the population in Palestinian Gaza Strip.

The statement asserted that if the security forces are not able to combat the newly emerged terrorist group in Sokoto, and Kebbi states, then many more Nigerian families would face uncertain future even as children would bear the devastating impacts of the activities of the new terrorist group: Lukarawas.

HURIWA which was responding to the call by President Tinubu for an immediate end to the prolonged Israeli aggression in Gaza, said that while stopping the war in Gaza between Israelis and Hamas fighters should be a top priority of the international community, the Nigerian leader must be told that millions of people in Maiduguri, North East and in the entire North West have endured over 12 years of persistent terrorist attacks which have produced many children in destitution and deprivation.

It said that the immediate priority of the Nigerian government in international meetings should be to highlight the dire existential adversities confronting the country and particularly, the seemingly unending terrorist attacks and then seek for international collaboration to achieve a successful war on terror.

HURIWA said; “Does President Tinubu know that an estimated 3 million people (59 per cent children) are internally displaced in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe States in Nigeria’s northeast; Sokoto, Zamfara and Katsina States in the northwest; and Benue State in north-central Nigeria?

“The proportion of displaced people living in camps is 45 per cent in the northeast; 12 per cent in the northwest; and 38 per cent in Benue State. Displacement is primarily due to protracted armed conflict in its fifteenth year in the northeast, armed violence (banditry and abduction) in the northwest.

Armed conflict in northeast Nigeria continues to adversely affect the lives and prospects of 7.7 million people, 60 per cent of them children,” it said.

HURIWA therefore urged President Tinubu to ceasefire on the implementation of harsh economic policies saying that even the World Bank that dictates the so called economic reforms, said thus; “Nominal earnings haven’t kept up with inflation, pushing another 10miillion Nigerians into poverty in 2023, Based on World Bank projections, about 40.7 percent of Nigerians are estimated to live below the international poverty line by the end of 2024”.