Drop Buhari as mediator over Jammeh, HURIWA tells ECOWAS

Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) wants the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), to drop President Muhammadu Buhari as the joint chairman of the committee mediating over the political impasse in The Gambia.

The pro-democracy and non-governmental organisation said it smacks of unprecedented hypocrisy and political immorality for the regional group to have the President of Nigeria in that trouble shooting position when his administration is in violation of a binding judgment of the highest constitutional court in the region, the ECOWAS court of justice, which ordered the immediate freedom for the erstwhile National Security Adviser, Colonel Sambo Dasuki (rtd).

The National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director, Miss Zainab Yusuf, in a statement said it was ludicrous for President Buhari to accept to carry out a peace-building job for a regional group that his administration had jettisoned an enforceable judicial decision.

Besides, the Rights group said President Buhari failed to respect the Federal High Court of Nigeria, which in its Abuja division made several binding orders granting bails to the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) Mr. Nnamdi Kanu and the former National Security Adviser, Colonel Sambo Dasuki.

HURIWA said: “The disrespect to a binding order of ECOWAS Court of Justice is a serious breach which mustn’t be overlooked by the member states. “What moral high ground is President Buhari standing on to demand that The Gambian President obey his nation’s electoral law and quit office for the lawfully and democratically elected President elect of Gambia when his administration in Nigeria has rubbished the integrity of both the judicial institutions of Nigeria and the regional bloc?”

HURIWA also wants ECOWAS to tell President Buhari to respect the ruling of the ECOWAS court because if the intransigent and defeated President of Gambia is to be persuaded to quit in accordance with democratic and global best practices it therefore follows that equity demands that President Buhari who is in breach of a subsisting judgment must be compelled to comply with the decision of the ECOWAS court and release on bail the detained former National Security Adviser Colonel Sambo Dasuki (rtd).

The ECOWAS team was insistent that Jammeh hand over power “within constitutional deadlines, and in accordance with electoral laws of The Gambia.”