Emmanuel Onwubiko
A pro-democracy and non-governmental organisation, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has dismissed the 57th Independence broadcast by President Muhammadu Buhari.
It said it is substantially deficient in statesmanship and portrays the President as someone with some deep-seated grudges and unmitigated hatred for the over 50 million Igbo-speaking people of South-East of Nigeria.
HURIWA said portions of the speech specifically lampooned the people and leaders of South-East and is capable of igniting longstanding hatred for the Igbo by his largely northern followers who had earlier issued an unconstitutional quit notice to Igbo to leave the 19 northern states by yesterday which they grudgingly suspended.
In a statement by its National Co-ordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director, Miss Zainab Yusuf in Abuja yesterday, the group said it was disappointing that the President seemed unperturbed about the alleged human rights violations and extra-legal execution of civilians and unarmed members of the self-determination group, Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), perpetrated by armed security forces during the ongoing Python Dance II in the South-East and most especially in Umuahia and Aba in Abia State.
The group also carpeted the Presidency for failing to use the symbolic broadcast marking Nigeria’s Independence anniversary to correct the abnormalities and systemic anomalies in the composition of the National Defence Council.
