Taraba killings: Rights group demands Buratai’s sack

Jeff Amechi Agbodo, Onitsha

A human rights group, Human Right, Liberty Access and Peace Defenders Foundation (HURIDE), has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately sack the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt. Gen. Mohammed Buratai, for the brutal murder of three police officers and two civilians in Ibi, Taraba State by army personnel.

The group called for the immediate arraignment of the soldiers directly and indirectly involved in the murder of the policemen, who were on a national assignment.

The chairman of HURIDE, Dede Uzor, in a statement, condemned the despicable murder of innocent Nigerian citizens in an official national assignment by Nigerian army, saying that the murder represented the inexplicable hatred of the army against the police and the citizens of Nigeria.

He said: “It is sad that such a broad day murder will happen 59 years after our independence. This cannot happen in a sane democratic environment, where rule of law and respect for human dignity are practised and observed.

“Recently, we witnessed where the Army killed an unarmed police and some defenceless Nigerians. Information at our disposal said the Captain who ordered the killing of those officers has been a beneficiary of kidnapping proceeds.”

The group demanded that all the soldiers and officers directly and remotely involved in the gruesome killing should be made to face prosecution to serve as a deterrent to others.

“The only way the President can show that he is serious in addressing this dastardly act is to sack the COAS. It is the only way Nigerians will take him serious as being on top of the situation. “

HURIDE flayed the directive by the Presidency for Defence Headquarters to investigate the matter, saying it doesn’t believe that the Defence Headquarters should be a judge in its own case.

“The Federal Government should set up a judicial panel of inquiry to be headed by a judge, with the representatives of credible rights groups as members. The Army cannot be a judge in its own case. It is an aberration,” the group submitted.