The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has insisted that the Federal government under President Muhammadu Buhari has no basis in law and morality to detain Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the proscribed Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB).
HURIWA said this is because the Southern and Northern governors have already divided the country by their actions, inactions, speeches and conflicts around which zone between North/South produces the next president in 2023.
HURIWA said this while reacting to Northern Governors’ rejection of power shift to the South.
Recall that the Northern Governors’ Forum (NGF) had on Monday said that the South’s insistence on producing the next president of Nigeria contradicts the provisions of the constitution.
Recently, Southern governors had insisted that their region produce Nigeria’s next president.
Reacting to the development, HURIWA, in a statement signed by Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, the National Coordinator of the rights body, on Tuesday, said there is no basis for Northern Nigeria to insist on producing Buhari’s successor if their intention is not to move for the eventual split of Nigeria in 2023.
The statement read in part, “We are ever more convinced beyond the shadows of doubts that the actions, inactions, speeches, threats made by governors of North versus South have shown that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and his unarmed Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) are prisoners of conscience and the members and leader of this otherwise proscribed IPOB must be released immediately since even the governors who are exercising constitutional powers are saying those same divisive sentiments and positions espoused by IPOB.
“Infact, the governors are terrorizing the peace of Nigeria by failing to peacefully agree to the transfer of presidential power from the North to the South in 2023 which is the irreducible minimum condition precedent for Nigeria to remain as a United entity beyond 2023. The arguments and actions of the governors, the president and the Northern dominated Appeal Court on the collection of the value-added tax shows that the presidency, the governors and the courts are now to be categorized as functional secessionists because this divisiveness and actions are stoking up tensions in Nigeria and are capable of inflaming passion and creating an uncontrollable schism between North and South and eventually dovetail into a civil conflict which may lead to the division of Nigeria by 2023.
