Insecurity: Order bandits to surrender arms, CDHR charges Buhari

Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR)  has said that it is not enough for President Muhammadu Buhari to charge the new service chiefs to end insecurity before the  next rainy season, stressing that the President should also order bandits bearing arms to surrender them immediately.

CDHR said that even the President directed the Service Generals to restore and free the country from the current state of insecurity “before the raining season sets in, stating that it was intended to give the farmers the confidence to go back to their farms, the rights group called for elaboration on charge by the President, especially given that in many parts of the country, the armed herdsman/farmer face off continues to rage. 

“How does the marching order fit into the existing deadlock? One would have expected a general call for the armed bandits posing as herdsmen, to be given an ultimatum, this time from the Presidency or Military Headquarters, to surrender their arms within a given period or face extinction.” CDHR  said.

CDHR in a press statement on Sunday, signed by its national president Osagie Obayuwana said that the shoot at sight order reported to have been made by Mr. President, would only have meaning when the soldiers march into the forest. According to CDHR, those with AK47 riffles are not at Bus Stops and Shopping Malls, but in the bushes and forests. 

The statement reads in part, “Mr. President needs to be reminded that it is not only farmers who are at risk; travelers on most high ways in Nigeria are at the mercy of riffle wielders, who have made a sport out of pouncing on vehicles in between cities and towns.’
 
Meanwhile CDHR deprecates the kidnapping of school children and took note of the assurance given by Mr. President that the abduction of the school girls at Jagende in Niger State, would be the last. “We will however be more assured to see modalities being worked out between Federal, State, and Local Governments to enhance development of infrastructural facilities in all schools, a principal part of which ought to be fencing and security facilities, with adequate day and night security personnel being a major component.”
 
The rights group stated that it  found it strange that what General Buratai and Olonishakin belatedly recognized would take 20 years  minimum to address, the Commander in Chief gave five weeks to the new team to solve, stressing that it only showed the importance of the fact that Mr. President must not trivialize and diagnose the challenge erroneously. 

“Mr. President must show through his words and action that he appreciates that what Nigeria faces today is nothing but the wages of centuries of misrule, that has made Nigeria the poverty capital of the world, the nation with the highest number of children out of school, one of the highest infant and maternal maternity rate in the world, an unpardonable housing and infrastructural deficit and a mind boggling level of unemployment.”
 
Adding, “To us at the CDHR, dealing with the security issue in its fullness calls for a change of focus and a commitment to fresh priorities. Nigeria must do away with white elephant projects that over the years have fuelled corruption and have been greeted with the spectacle of “abandoned projects. 

“Whether Mr. President is inclined or capable of bringing about this qualitative and therefore revolutionary change within the period of the rest of his tenure, is up in the air, but what is not in doubt is the urgent need for all Nigerians irrespective of ethnicity and religious beliefs to dialogue and in work together to bring into existence a qualitatively new type of government.”