Civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, has called on the Inspector-General of Police, Usman Baba; and the Commissioner of Police in Enugu State, Abubakar Lawal, to unravel the perpetrators of fresh killings in the South-East state.
Aside from the IGP, the group also tasked the Director-General of the Directorate of States Services, Yusuf Bichi, to step up investigations to uncover the ‘politicians sponsoring violence in Enugu’.
HURIWA made the appeal in a statement signed by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, and titled, ‘Fresh Enugu killings political, police must unravel orchestrators -HURIWA’, on Monday.
According to him, the killings are more politically motivated considering that the two main parties in the state – the Peoples Democratic Party and the All Progressives Congress – have been embroiled in conflict and violent leadership crises.
The leadership crisis among both parties, he alleged, bordered on who succeeds the state’s Governor, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, after the expiration of his tenure.
Onwubiko said, “The killings are all connected to succession struggles for 2023. Apparently, a lot of power blocs are struggling to succeed the incumbent and some powerful politicians are not happy that Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, as a peaceful man wants to maintain the charter of equity and power rotation amongst the zones.
“HURIWA calls for a thorough forensic investigation by security forces so that the culprits are identified, arrested and prosecuted because HURIWA believes strongly based on some information and intelligence that the killings are not by the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra or any ‘unknown gunmen’ but purely political killings orchestrated by disgruntled politicians of both APC and PDP.
“It’s high time these callous men turning the state to a killing field are brought to book. The police must unveil their masked identities immediately.”
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