Okwe Obi, Abuja
Human Right Writers Association (HURIWA), has condemned the arrest of one of the spokespersons of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Buba Galadima by suspected operatives of the Department of State Service, calling for his release.
HURIWA’s National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, while addressing journalists in Abuja, yesterday, added that irrespective of Galadima’s crime, he should be charged to court, rather than be treated disrespectfully.
Onwubiko, who further flayed the killings of voters in Bayelsa, Lagos, Oyo and Rivers States, appealed to the military to arrest and prosecute perpetrators to serve as a deterrent to others.
His words: “The reported arrest of the PDP chieftain, Alhaji Buba Galadima by DSS is hereby condemned and we demand for his immediate release.
“We have resolved to dispatch today, a written report to the office of Chief of Arms staff to demand that all those soldiers reportedly found wanting and implicated in the alleged killing of the adhoc staff of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), in Rivers state are identified and prosecuted.
“We also wish to use this opportunity to encourage the military authority to abide by the constitutional demands of respect of due process of the law by allowing the relevant law enforcement agency to fish out the alleged killers of a military officer on the line of deity in Rivers State.
“We plead with the Army not to repeat the Odi style of invasion of the said community in Rivers state in which the Army officer was gruesomely killed.
“We condemned all the killings of both civilian, police and Army and asked that the due process of the law be activated so as to bring all the culprits to justice.
“We call for the prosecution of the bandits in Lagos, Rivers and Bayelsa States, who disrupted the polls and physically manhandled the Deputy Police Commissioner,” he added.