*SAYS ARMY IS OVER BURDENED WITH POLICING DUTIES:
A frontline Civil Rights Advocacy group HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has condemned as absolutely despicable and reprehensible, the genocide killings of dozens of Borno farmers in Borno State by Boko haram terrorists just as the Rights group said the Nigerian Army alongside other Sister armed forces engaging in the vigorous counter terror war should be adequately funded to clinically decimate, degrade and comprehensively defeat the terrorists and re-establish lasting peace, territorial sanctity and prosperity for the people of the North East of Nigeria.
“HURIWA is shocked at the bloodcuddling bloodletting that took place in the past 24 hours in the North East of Nigeria and especially the day light genocide of rural fish farmers by persons suspected to be fighter of the Boko haram terrorists. It is a sad day to wake up with the heartrending story of the gruesome decapitation of some Nigerians only because they went in search of foods for their families. The story that some 40 people reported ‘slaughtered’ in attack on labourers working in rice fields in Borno state in the country’s northeast, is a monumental disaster which calls for a declaration of national mourning for a day by President Muhammadu Buhari. To read that the assailants on Saturday tied up the agricultural workers and slit their throats in the village of Koshobe, near Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, is the most saddening piece of news since this year.
We in the organised civil society community in Nigeria completely locates the blame on the doorsteps of President Muhammadu Buhari who is actually not providing the needed political leadership to win the war on terror which has lasted far longer than necessary. The government is not funding the military as much as it should. The government is not ready even to officially declare Boko haram terrorists as a terror network so their finances are traced but the Central bank of Nigeria is misused to witchunt peaceful protesters and the banking accounts of suspected sponsors of the recent peaceful protests against police brutality and the violent killings of Nigerian Citizens were frozen by CBN but the Central bank of Nigeria under the current administration has increasingly failed to trace the funding channels of Boko haram terrorists and again the justice sector is not willing to prosecute the terrorists because the officials plan to milk Nigeria dry by presenting outrageous bills as budget for the prosecution of terrorists just about the same time that government continuously releases these terrorists arrested back into the society under the pretensions that they are to be deradicalised and reintegrated. The government by releasing terrorists is providing recruitment fertile ground for Boko haram terrorists. Also the government fails to fund the war efforts”.
HURIWA recalled that the information from Borno state states the death toll is rising because local people told the media thus: “We have recovered 43 dead bodies, all of them slaughtered, along with six others with serious injuries,” Babakura Kolo, a leader of a local militia fighting armed groups in the region, told AFP news agency.Reuters news agency, citing a village leader, a local fighter with the Zamarmari group and a police source, also reported the attack, putting the death toll to at least 40 people.A search by the authorities for the attackers has been launched, it added.
HURIWA cited news report ad stating that: ” Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) are both active in northeast Nigeria. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict, which has displaced about two million since 2009.“It is no doubt the [work] of Boko Haram who operate in the area and frequently attack farmers,” Kolo, who helped the survivors, said of Saturday’s attack.
The victims were labourers from Sokoto state in northwest Nigeria, roughly 1,000km (600 miles) away, who had travelled to the northeast to find work, said another militiaman, Ibrahim Liman, who gave the same toll.“There were 60 farmers who were contracted to harvest paddy in the rice fields. Forty-three were slaughtered, with six injured,” Liman told AFP.Eight others were missing, presumed to have been kidnapped by the attackers, he said.”
The Rights group said it will be insensitive for Nigerians to condemn the military for not doing enough because in the words of the RIGHTS GROUP, the military can only do so much that the funding and equipping capacities permit which is why we are calling on the international community to come to the rescue of Nigeria by providing logistical and technical support for the military just as the Rights Advocacy group HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has charged the Nigerian government to stop over burdering the Milirary with routine policing duties but to allow the military focused totally on the war on terror just as the government should carry out transparent REORGANIZATION of the Nigerian Police Force so the police is detailed to handle internal law and order security matters whereas the military should face their constitutionally guaranteed fundamental freedoms functions to defend the territorial integrity of Nigeria.