Convict 400 terrorism sponsors, arrested Owo attackers before May 29, HURIWA tells Buhari

CIVIL rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, (HURIWA), on Sunday, charged President Muhammadu Buhari to ensure the trial and conviction of 400 Bureau de Change operators identified for terrorism financing and the six arrested Owo attackers before he leaves office on May 29, 2023.

HURIWA has also asked the federal government to swiftly arrest the Chinese miners in Zamfara who are allegedly funding the armed Fulani terrorists in Zamfara State so they are prosecuted and published for waging war against Nigeria through sponsorship of terrorism.

Specifically, The Times, a British daily, says Chinese nationals in the mining sector are funding terrorist groups in parts of Nigeria to secure access to the Country’s mineral reserves just as the newspaper added that Beijing could be indirectly funding terror in Africa’s largest economy.

The Rights group expressed doubts that President Muhammadu Buhari’s government will have the political will to deal with these Chinese people funding terrorism in Nigeria given that this government has gone down in history as the one that has borrowed extensively and frivolously from the Chinese government which is now the subjection of the international media investigation that uncovered the nexus between the attacks by terrorists in the North West and the funds provided to them by Chinese miners in the mineral resources rich Zamfara State.

HURIWA, in a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, reminded the President that delayed justice is no justice at all and it is a mockery of his mantra to fight terrorism and banditry which he used as part of his manifesto to campaign for office in May 2015.

The group said Buhari should prove his critics wrong that he pampers Fulani terrorists and is reluctant to prosecute the few arrested ones in the custody of security agents. The President should prove his detractors wrong by doing the needful: which is swift trial of arrested terrorists and their conviction.

HURIWA said rather than seeing to the prosecution and conviction of insurgents, the Buhari administration has perpetually embarked on many frivolous schemes to free arrested insurgents, calling its deradicalisation and even empowerment of murderers and bloodthirsty marauders who claim to have repented.

HURIWA’s Onwubiko said, “We demand clarity on what has happened to the 400 suspected sponsors and funders of terrorism in the North-East who were numerically listed but their names not disclosed by the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami.

“It is over two years since they have been announced but why the secrecy in disclosing their names and why is their prosecution shrouded in secrecy or not commenced at all when other nations are committed to using the legal mechanisms to stamp out terrorists funders?

“For instance, a French court on Friday convicted 11 alleged members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party on charges of terror financing for its campaign to seek autonomy for the minority in Turkey’s South-East.

“Even those arrested in connection with the Capitol riot have been charged for their roles in the riot as about 350 individuals have been sentenced and 192 have been incarcerated.

“Also, the United Arab Emirates convicted Nigerians who were terror financiers about two years ago but the Nigerian government is failing to do the basic duty of government which is to enforce the counter terrorism law to deal with those who have provided resources used by these genocidal killers to bomb civilians targets, and churches.

“Although about a year ago, the Nigerian military said it has arrested about six assailants that carried out the attack on St Francis Xavier Church, Owo, Ondo State, on 5 June, 2022 but none of the suspects have been prosecuted in the attack left over 40 worshippers dead while scores of others sustained different injuries.

“The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Lucky Irabor, named the arrested suspects as Idris Abdulmalik Omeiza (a.k.a Bin Malik), Momoh Otohu Abubakar, Aliyu Yusuf Itopa, Auwal Ishaq Onimisi, Al-Qasim Idris and Abdulhaleem Idris.

“We place a demand on the conscience of President Muhammadu Buhari to ensure the prosecution and the conviction of these six Owo suspects and the 400 terrorism financiers before he leaves office on May 29, 2023.”

April 16, 2023
Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko
National Coordinator – HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA