The Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR) has lashed President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, claiming that the federal government’s nepotistic tendencies and insensitivity to issues relating to secession and restructuring have only helped in winning more converts to the secessionist option.
The group argued that President Buhari’s nonchalant approach to the issue has widened the call beyond Biafra to the Oduduwa Republic, the Middle Belt and the Lower Niger Congress.
CDHR in a statement it issued on Monday and shared with ARISE News said the high-handedness with which the Nigerian government uses in suppressing the secession issues will unsurprisingly ensure that the rebellion leads to attacks which the country has already witnessed in recent times.
“Even though a secessionist tendency has been with us in Nigeria for some years, there is no running away from the fact that the narrow nepotism as well as the ethnic and religious sectarianism that has characterised the Buhari government has served to reinforce those who believe that attainment of justice has become impossible within Nigeria and that the only way out is the parting of ways by Nigeria’s component peoples,” CDHR said in the statement that was signed by its National President, Dr Osagie Obayuwana.
The group said further that “it is government’s insensitivity to this issue that has won more converts to the secessionist option and has in fact widened the call beyond Biafra to Oduduwa Republic, the Middle Bely and the Lower Niger Congress.
“The high-handedness with which these issues have been suppressed makes it not surprising that the rebellion would extend to attacks which Nigeria has witnessed in recent times, on the symbols of the State considered oppressive, like the Police the Soldiers, the Correctional Facility and Customs.”
The group reminded the Nigerian leader that true federalism and restructuring was a cardinal part of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) manifesto which made the Buhari presidency possible after his many failed attempts.
“After almost six years of Buhari being on the saddle, the conclusion on the part of the majority of Nigerians is that Buhari, the famed man of integrity, is actually not a man of his words,” the CDHR stated.
“He had engaged in trickery and pretence to secure office, now being used to actualise a narrow Fulani agenda, which is actually a crisis-prone misadventure, doomed to fail, but which unfortunately may consume Nigeria, if same is not abandoned.”
By Abel Ejikeme
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