Herdsmen attacks: HURIWA threatens to drag Buhari, Osinbajo, others to ICC

The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has said it would drag President Muhammadu Buhari; Vice President Yemi Osinbajo; the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan and the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Muhammad Tanko, to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to face prosecution for crimes against humanity should the current wave of killings by armed herdsmen continue and the killers and their sponsors go unpunished.  

It also challenged the President and the National Assembly to take practical steps to stop the nationwide war on Nigerians by armed herdsmen. 

The rights group said it was legally incumbent on the Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces to adhere strictly to his constitutional oath of office and enforce immediate and comprehensive military strategies to stop the widening specter of bloody violence against different communities all over Nigeria by suspected armed Fulani herdsmen. 

HURIWA, in a statement yesterday, in Abuja, signed by the National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, lamented that the government has in five years failed to prosecute “the mass murderers terrorising Nigeria.” 

HURIWA said: “The failure of President Buhari to effectively put an end to these cocktails of well-coordinated violent uprising by suspected Fulani herdsmen who are on rampage in diverse Nigerian communities in the North West; North Central; South-South states of Delta, Akwa Ibom and the recent killings in Benue State by armed Fulani herdsmen amounts to a constitutional breach on the side of the president. 

“The failure of the National Assembly to pass a binding resolution acknowledging the ongoing civil war by armed herders against Nigeria is a serious dereliction of legislative duties, which should lead to the impeachment of both the Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Femi Gbajabiamila.”

HURIWA stated that the fundamental role of National Assembly was to compel the executive to do the needful to stop the bloodshed or to invoke the constitutional provisions, which permits them to remove a non-performing president. 

“This bloodshed can’t continue forever. The killings are way too much and life has become too cheap under this government.  This is genocide and must be seen as such. We will drag all the leaders of the different arms of government to the ICC if no step is taken by 76 hours to stop the killings and try these killers. 

“The primary responsibility of government is the prevention of mass killings and the enthronement of security of lives and property of the citizenry. This government has failed.”