By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has accused Muhammadu Buhari of doing injustice by releasing 1,009 Boko Haram murderers and locking up Nnamdi Kanu, who was illegally abducted in Kenya by the President’s henchmen.
The British High Commission in Abuja and a law firm in London, Bindmans, have sought the consent of Kanu, leader of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), to take up his case.
Kanu is a Nigerian-British citizen.
Two forms for his consent were delivered to him on Wednesday at the Department of State Services (DSS) in Abuja where he is being detained, according to his lawyer, Aloy Ejimakor.
On the same day, the Islamist jihadists were released from military custody in Maiduguri, without court trial, despite their horrific expeditions in the North of killing, maiming, and extorting millions of naira as ransom for kidnap victims.
Also on the same day, Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, Rev Matthew Kukah, testified before a United States Congressional Human Rights Commission that religious violence against Christians in Nigeria has risen steadily in the past 10 years.
Kukah said Buhari is not interested in dealing with terrorists, failing to deliver on his campaign promise to tackle insecurity, which made him win Aso Rock in 2015.
El-Rufai’s jihadist support backfires in Kaduna
Every Northern state is in the grip of the terrorists, including Buhari’s home state of Katsina, and Kaduna where Governor Nasir el-Rufai, a Fulani supremacist and Boko Haram sympathiser, has secretly withdrawn his son from school to avoid kidnap.
This week, the Kaduna State government disclosed that bandits killed 222 people, injured 266 and kidnapped 774 in the last three months, and have started collecting protection levies from farmers in communities across the 12 councils.
“Many farmers in these areas, fearing for their lives and safety, have abandoned their fields altogether.
“This has already begun to affect crop yields, and the threat of food insecurity looms large,” Internal Security and Home Affairs Commissioner, Samuel Aruwan, told El-Rufai and other top government officials on Tuesday.
Since January, terrorists have attacked five schools and abducted 204 students in the state.
On July 9, state Police Commissioner Umar Muri told visiting Police Inspector General Alkali Usman, that Kaduna State, capital of Northern Nigeria, has become a failed state, literally.
Highways in the state – Kaduna-Abuja highway, Kaduna-Birnin Gwari Road and Kaduna-Zaria Road – are no-go areas for citizens who obey the law.
Islamist jihadists have so ravaged the state that El-Rufai has shut down 13 schools to protect pupils from these heartless terrorists who abduct even mothers and babies from hospitals.
Muri recounted to Usman:
“From our records, the schools that have been attacked and students abducted in Kaduna State from January 2021 to date alone include:
· “College of Forestry and Mechanisation, Mando Afaka where 37 students were kidnapped on March 11, 2021 and subsequently rescued.
· “Green Field University along Kaduna-Abuja Highway where 23 students were kidnapped on April 20, 2021 and five of the students were gruesomely killed by their abductors while the rest were released.
· “Nuhu Bamalli Polytechnic, Zaria where two kidnapping incidents were recorded, first involving three students on December 14, 2020 who were later released by their abductors and the second incident was recorded on June 10, 2021 involving two lecturers and seven students.
· “The National Centre for Tuberculosis and Leprosy in Saye, Zaria LGA of Kaduna where eight staff were kidnapped on July 4, 2021.
· “Bethel Baptist Academy, Maraban Rido, Kaduna where 135 students were kidnapped on July 5, 2021 out of which 28 were rescued and the remaining 107 victims are still in captivity.”
New chapter in Kanu’s case
Ejimakor told Vanguard that the involvement of the United Kingdom in the case of Kanu would open up a new chapter in his trial.
He said the Nigerian government would be served with summons to bring him to the UK, where another case would be heard on his abduction to Nigeria.
“I went to visit him on Wednesday and went with two forms. One was the consular consent form that the British High Commission required that he signs to consent to consular assistance,” Ejimakor said.
“There was also a form from his counsel in the UK. The firm is known as Bindmans, one of the largest law firms in the UK.
“The forms will open a whole new chapter of legality, including the filing of a Writ of Mandamus, against the Nigerian government in a UK court to compel it to produce Kanu, because his detention is illegal under British law.
“It was an extraordinary rendition, which is an international crime by which a state kidnaps a suspect or a fugitive without the due process of law.
“They will be filing all these processes in the UK and there is a prospect of a UK court assuming universal jurisdiction or extra-territorial jurisdiction and reaching into Kenya so that they can arrest every Kenyan official, either authorised or not, and every Nigerian official involved in this case.”
Kanu narrates ordeal in Nairobi and Abuja
Ejimakor confirmed that the DSS collected the forms, saying they must first go through the vetting of its legal unit.
He said despite being told that he would collect them on Thursday, he had yet to be contacted by the government agency.
He recounted how, in a meeting that lasted three hours, Kanu gave a vivid account of how the Nigerian government hired agents who abducted and flew him into the country.
Ejimakor said Kanu told him that he was blindfolded and flown on a private jet without any extradition hearing or immigration process.
“Kanu said he was flown to Abuja in a private jet on Sunday June 27, 2021, from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Nairobi and that he was the lone passenger.
“He was blindfolded and driven to the tarmac very close to the plane without passing through the airport immigration. The plane departed Nairobi around 12pm and arrived in Abuja in the evening.
“Kanu was tortured and subjected to untold cruel and inhuman treatment in Kenya. He said his abductors disclosed to him that they abducted him at the behest of the Nigerian government.
“The people that abducted him said they were told by their sponsors that Kanu was a Nigerian terrorist linked to Islamic terrorists in Kenya, presumably Al-Shabab. But after several days when they discovered his true identity, they tended to treat him less badly.
“Despite that, they told him they felt committed to hand him over to those that hired them.
“According to Kanu, no warrant of arrest was shown to him or even mentioned to him. And for the eight days, he was held incommunicado, nothing of presenting him before a court or transferring him to an official detention facility was ever mentioned. He was held in a nondescript private facility and chained to a bare floor.
“Kanu was interviewed for the first time in my presence by three DSS officers.
“The interview was revealing as it contained certain new allegations that were never heard of before. But all the questions relate directly or indirectly to his status as the leader of IPOB.”
The counsel said despite Kanu’s ordeal, the man was in high spirits.
HURIWA calls for Buhari’s impeachment
HURIWA issued a statement titled, “Release Of Boko Haram Suspects Is An Impeachable Offence – HURIWA Tells Buhari,” signed by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, Media Affairs Director, Zainab Yusuf.
The group was reacting to a report by The PUNCH that 1,009 Boko Haram insurgents, who had been in military custody at Giwa Barracks in Maiduguri, were released on Wednesday.
They were handed over to the Borno State government in a secret ceremony initially billed to take place at an earlier date but was suspended indefinitely by the military authorities in the wake of the appointment of a new Chief of Army Staff.
HURIWA said: “The trending report of the freeing and resettlement of hundreds of Boko Haram terrorists on the orders of … Buhari is not just an unpardonable ethical crime but amounts to an impeachable offence by the President because it undermines the basis of the rule of law.
“Besides, HURIWA has asked Buhari to release … Kanu and all the detained members of the banned [IPOB] because in the thinking of the group, if the government can undermine the Constitution to free hardened terrorists, why is the government detaining members of a self-determination group that denies government accusations of its involvement in the killing of security operatives in South East Nigeria?”
HURIWA urged the National Assembly to “wake up from slumber and defend the Constitution by compelling … Buhari to stop breaking the law by releasing terrorists, and move to impeach him should he refuse to rescind the unconstitutional conduct.”
Buhari not interested in dealing with jihadists, Kukah tells US Congress
Vanguard reports that Kukah made his virtual presentation to the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in Washington on the persecution of Christians in Nigeria by armed extremist groups in the North.
The Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission – formerly known as the Congressional Human Rights Caucus – is a bipartisan caucus of the US House of Representatives.
He told the Commission that Nigerians are yet to see any tangible move towards tackling insecurity which, according to him, has a religious undertone.
People are agitated by palpable fear and tension across the country, he added.
Kukah testified that religious violence against Christians in Nigeria has been a recurring experience of many years but the attacks have risen steadily in the past 10 years.
He said extremists target mainly Christian schools in the North, “indoctrinate the children and end up converting the girls to wives, cooks, spies, sexual slaves and so on.
“The story of Leah Sharibu suggests very clearly that there is, in many instances, a relationship between the conditions in which people find themselves and the faith they believe in.
“The last year, 2020, some of our Priests in the North were killed. The extremists kidnapped our children and forcefully converted them to Muslims.
“We have issued statements and called the attention of the government to our plight. We have also reached out to let the government know that we are willing to cooperate towards the greatness of our country.”
Kukah, who is the Secretary of the National Peace Committee, accused Buhari of deliberately appointing more people of his ethnicity and faith into political offices.
“The North, even the whole country, is invaded by armed bandits, kidnappers, etc, who attack communities at will. The fact that the government seems to be either helpless or uninterested in dealing decisively with these people has added more confusion.
“And the contradiction here is that the President has blatantly pursued nepotistic…, and policies that show very clearly his preferences for men and women of his faith.
“For the first time in Nigeria the people heading the three arms of government; the President, Senate President, Speaker, and Chief Justice are all Muslims. These are all fine gentlemen, but that is not the point.
“The level between Christians and Muslims has exacerbated. This kind of situation has never happened before.
“What is significant here is that we are in a democracy; with weak structures, and institutions. These are existential issues. So, we require practical assistance that can help us and our children.”