HURIWA Urges INEC To Call Metuh, Lai Mohammed To Order Over Inflammatory Statements

A non-governmental organisation, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has expressed concern about the adverse effects the gale of impeachment and attempted impeachment of state governors is generating across the country.

It called on the Nigerian political class to declare a general period of national truce.

HURIWA, in a statement jointly signed by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, and the National Media Affairs Director, Zainab Yusuf, called on the national leaderships of the various political parties as well as strategic national political stakeholders to convoke a self-funded national political peace conference to sign a memorandum of understanding on the enforcement of the national period of peace, quiet and tranquility to be supervised by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.

The group also asked President Goodluck Jonathan to direct his retinue of aides to desist from issuing messages that only create further disunity and polarisation of Nigerians along political divides.

“Presidential aides must not turn their offices to partisan war fronts since they are called to offer national service to the Fatherland through the office of the President of all Nigerians elected by the electorate that cut across all party affiliations”, it said.

“It is unthinkable that politicians are apparently chasing after rats even while the Nigerian house is on fire. This attitude is satanic and reprehensible because if nothing concrete is done to join forces with the current Federal Government to wage result-oriented battle against the armed Islamic insurgents, then soon we may not have a country to call our own”.

HURIWA also called on INEC to as a matter of urgency, call to order, with a threat of sanction, the national publicity secretaries of the ruling PDP and the opposition APC and compel them to stop making seditious statements capable of truncating the current democratic atmosphere in the country.

It added, “INEC must act fast and be decisive in ensuring that political parties registered under the Nigerian constitution are not converted to weapons of generating national disunity and war among the different segments and fault lines inherent in the Nigerian state.

“INEC must save the Nigerian democracy from collapsing under the heavy fire power of hate messages that are spewing out from the offices of the national publicity secretaries of both the Peoples Democratic Party and the opposition All Progressives Congress.

“The office of the National Security Adviser to the President should also be concerned about the ugly turn of hate messages that are churned out by the two leading political parties of Nigeria because these divisive and emotional sentiments are clear and present danger to Nigeria’s national security”.