The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA ) has cautioned against any contemplation by the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal government to relocate terrorists and members of the armed Islamists-Boko Haram from some detention facilities within military institutions to the Onitsha Prisons in Anambra State prisons.
In a statement supporting the protests yesterday by traders and civil society community in Anambra State, the Rights group said the decision if implemented is capable of throwing spanners into the developmental strides achieved so far by both the immediate past Governor Peter Obi led administration and the current Governor Obiano led government.
HURIWA, therefore, asked “the governors of the South East States and National and state legislators to speak out and take verifiable and pragmatic steps to mount pressure on the president to drop this untoward plot to destroy the peace of Igbo land.”
Besides, the Rights group said “the planned relocation of these high profile blood thirsty terrorism suspects to the notoriously unsafe and unprotected prison facilities in Anambra state will create instability and lead to massive drift of population from Anambra to other States for fear of the unknown since the recent spate of prison breaks and escape linked to some detained Boko Haram suspects are still unresolved.
“HURIWA has therefore asked President Buhari to perish the thought except he has clandestine and subterranean plots to destroy the economy of Anambra state and by extension introduce activities of these terrorists to the South East of Nigeria.”
In a statement jointly endorsed by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media affairs Director Miss Zainab Yusuf, HURIWA, called on all persons of goodwill and especially Igbo leaders globally to rise up in unison and condemn this sinister plots to distabilise the Igbo heartland which is what will logically result should the Federal Government succeeds in relocating these suspected Boko Haram terrorists to Anambra State.
HURIWA said that “these terrorists must remain wherever they are in the North East especially in the military detention facilities that are fortified because all the Nigerian Prison facilities managed by the Nigerian Prison Services have become derelict and dilapidated and therefore unsuitable for the detention of these calibres of highly sophisticated and trained terrorists kingpins currently detained by the Nigerian military.”
The rights group has also called on organised civil society groups to sustain their protests and actively resist any further plan to transfer the terrorists to Onitsha Anambra State.
HURIWA has threatened to institute a petition in the United Nations Human Rights Council should the President proceed to transfer terrorists from their safely and well protected military facilities to the porous and unsecured Prison facilities in the South East.
“The President will be held accountable and responsible should his government proceed with the ill advised transfer of terrorists to Anambra State and should anything dangerous happen to the civilian population in the South East.” (News Express).