Civil Rights advocacy Group HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has described the simultaneous deadly attacks at the weekend by terrorists of Boko Haram and ISWAP, bandits and kidnappers in Borno, Katsina and Edo State in which more than 131 Nigerians were slaughtered as the intensification of the bloody war being waged relentlessly by the daredevil armed non-state actors in Nigeria.
HURIWA said the recent actions of the military and operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS) to confront these terrorists with increasing rates of success are particularly a welcome idea just as the Rights group called on the Chief of Defence Staff General Chris Gwabin Musa and the National Security Adviser to President Tinubu Mallam Nuhu Ribadu to continue to provide statesmanship and leadership so the security forces so the armed forces will in the shortest possible time frame, clinically defeat the terrorists, bandits, insurgents threatening the National security of Nigeria. HURIWA condemned the fact that over 65, 000 lives of the citizens have been wasted by terrorists, bandits and insurgents around the length and breadth of Nigeria even as the Rights group complained bitterly about the slow speed of dispensation of justice against mass killers and terrorists by the courts of Nigeria.
In a media statement on Sunday, HURIWA through the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Nnadozie Onwubiko regretted that terrorists believed to belong to ISWAP/Boko Haram have slaughtered at least 55 people in an attack on a village in northeastern Nigeria’s Borno State where people had recently returned after years of displacement.
Residents of Darul Jama, located near the border with Cameroon, said the raid occurred on Friday night and fighters believed to be from Boko Haram arrived on motorbikes, shooting indiscriminately and setting homes ablaze.
Accounts on the number of deaths varied. Babagana Ibrahim, a commander of a government-aligned militia, told the news agency AFP that 55 people were killed, including six soldiers.
Besides, HURIWA applauded the residents of Shagari and Bimasa communities in Sokoto State who on Thursday launched counterattacks against bandits, rescuing kidnapped relatives and reportedly killing at least 15 of the attackers.
Sources said that the villagers, armed with locally made weapons, tracked the bandits into the forest after a series of raids on their communities in Shagari and Tureta Local Government Areas.
“In Bimasa, residents killed several bandits, retrieved stolen animals, and even captured one suspect alive. The suspect was later paraded in the village,” a source said.
HURIWA recalled that seven people were reportedly killed as bandits launched an attack on Magajin Wando village in Dandume Local Government Area of Katsina State.
HURIWA gathered that the attack occurred between 11pm and midnight on Friday.
The Katsina State Government confirmed the incident on Saturday in a statement by the Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs, Nasir Mu’azu.
According to the statement by the Katsina Home Affairs Ministry, many people would have been killed but for the intervention of security operatives who confronted the bandits.
The Rights group applauded the timely intervention of the security agents which according to HURIWA demonstrated a fresh perspective in terms of how the top leadership of the security services have tinkered with the operational strategies to hasten timeline for counter action or response times.
The Rights group encouraged the armed forces and police including the Department of State Services to ensure that proactive measures are more often deployed to beat the terrorists before they attack the citizens.
On the deadly massacre of security operatives in Edo State, HURIWA condemned these killings and lamented how non-state actors are allowed to kill eight security officials and then went ahead to kidnap Chinese expatriate workers.
HURIWA said the killings of these operatives of the Nigeria Civil Defence Corps shows that there is the ever increasing need for collaboration amongst the different armed security services in the country in such a way that whenever any of the segments of the armed forces comes under attack by terrorists, the sister agencies could be quickly mobilised within record time to support the security agents under attack by non-state armed groups.
“The pride of any nation is continuously promoted when it becomes a regular features of the armed forces that they always conquer and vanquish terrorists who attempt to torpedo the security agents. The armed security forces ought to dominate the war environment at all times”, HURIWA affirmed.
The Rights group has therefore asked the National Security Adviser to ensure that the deadly incident that happened on Friday when a group of suspected armed kidnappers attacked a convoy of the paramilitary Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) and Chinese nationals working for local BUA Cement, should never happen again.
HURIWA recalled that the NSCDC spokesperson Afolabi Babawale said four Chinese workers who were kidnapped were rescued but one was missing. Eight operatives from the agency were killed and four were seriously injured, he added.
HURIWA conclusively asserted that there is encouraging signs that the armed forces of Nigeria and the Department of State Services are more frequently working in unison just as the Rights group stated that it is important that the terrorists are overwhelmed and decisively defeated by the armed forces of Nigeria even as HURIWA has called for citizens support for the war on terror to be won as soon as possible given that the war on terror has gone on for over a decade.
*Comrade Emmanuel Nnadozie Onwubiko,
