CAN, HURIWA condemn massacre, group seeks state police  

The President of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Rev. Samson Olasupo Ayokunle, has condemned the act, describing it as unwarranted, senseless and wicked. 

In a statement yesterday in Abuja, he called on the police to fish out the culprits without delay. Also, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), decried the massacre.

It accused the state police command of “abysmally failing in its constitutional responsibility and duty to the citizenry by the clear lack of coordinated security operations in that part of Anambra State which made it much easier for hoodlums who are allegedly well-armed to drive straight to an important place of worship on a solemn day to commit a horrendous mass murder.”

In a statement in Abuja by the National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and National Media Affairs Director, Zainab Yusuf, HURIWA said it was unacceptable that humongous budgetary releases are made towards maintaining armed security forces in Nigeria.

Onwubiko noted that when the occasion calls for the operatives to exercise their lawful obligations of safeguarding lives and property of citizens, they always fail. He, therefore, called for the creation of state police to better secure the citizenry.

The statement reads: “HURIWA hereby condemns this atrocious and primitive attack targeting these soft targets as an outrageous and barbaric act which must not go unpunished. Government must wake up from slumber and play its legal duty of protecting the lives and property of the Nigerian citizens.

“We in the human rights community are indeed shocked and disappointed that with all the security votes spent in buying vehicles for the Nigeria Police and other security forces, that this type of brazenly murderous atrocities can happen and the perpetrators were neither stopped from carrying out their dastardly crime nor were they arrested so as to prosecute and punish them severely for this grave crime against humanity.” 

It continued: “Anambra State governor must ensure that those who planned and executed this massacre in Ozubulu are arrested, prosecuted swiftly and decisively punished to serve as deterrent. 

“By the way, why is the state not secured additionally by armed vigilantes similar to the civilian joint task force that exists in some states even when billions are expended as security votes yearly?”

The group argued that the inability of security agencies to secure Nigerians all across the length and breath of the country supports the urgency for the establishment of state policing institutions to be composed of well-trained, motivated and mobilised operatives to do the job.

It, therefore, demanded the dismissal of the state Commissioner of Police and the Director of the Department of State Services (DSS) for allegedly failing in their duties.