Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has condemned the conspiratory silence for over 24 hours of President Muhammadu Buhari over the brutal hacking to death of a 200 level Christian student of the Sokoto College of Education, Miss Deborah Samuel Yakubu, by Islamic extremists in the school over alleged blasphemy.
HURIWA warned that reprisals may become inevitable if the case of murder of Deborah in Sokoto is swept under the carpets like similar cases of murders of Christians over alleged blasphemy by Islamists in Kubwa, Abuja, and twice in Kano State.
The rights group told Sokoto State Governor, Alhaji Aminu Tambuwal and the hierarchy of the ill-fated school that the blood of the innocent Christian girl murdered in broad daylight is on their heads and generations unborn won’t forgive them for their seemingly ominous inaction.
HURIWA said it is urging that the strongest deterrent action provided by law is applied against the killers of Deborah who are even captured on video recordings or else the Federal Government has unwittingly authorised that reprisals should occur and the violence will do Nigeria no good because religious violence could lead to a civil war.
“HURIWA is very much aware, that President Muhammadu Buhari did not mince words to condemn Indigenous Peoples of Biafra(IPOB) even without any scientific evidence linking them remotely or otherwise to the gruesome and despicable beheading of the soldiers’ couple massacred by unknown gunmen reportedly on their way to a traditional wedding in the South East of Nigeria. President Muhammadu Buhari even gave an order that the killers be hunted down and dealt with decisively by military forces.
“President Muhammadu Buhari did this aforementioned hurriedly but generally hasty reaction because the perceived or suspected killers are Igbos, an ethnicity that his administration has treated with the short end of the stick for not voting for him in 2015 and 2019.
“But since over 28 hours that a Christian student of the Sokoto College of Education, Deborah Samuel Yakubu, was lynched by Islamic students for alleged blasphemy, President Muhammadu Buhari has maintained conspiratorial silence as if the innocent blood that was shed by the extremists is not that of a human being.
“This same hypocrisy of conspiratorial silence was noticed with the Sokoto State governor who stayed away from taking action but secretly sent his commissioner for higher education to speak on the murder.
“We in HURIWA want to let him Tambuwal and Buhari know that so long as there is no justice for this murdered Martyr Miss Deborah Yakubu, her innocent blood is on their heads”.
HURIWA condemned the management of Shehu Shagari College of Education in Sokoto for standing by and for doing next to nothing whilst the riotous Islamic extremists within the students body descended on their fellow student and killed her like a chicken but only made timid announcement of the so-called indefinite closure of the institution after a female student was reportedly killed for alleged blasphemy.
HURIWA said it is preposterous that the late student, believed to be a Christian, was stoned to death and burnt just because she was reportedly said to have attributed her academic excellence to Jesus and rankled by her response, she was asked to withdraw the statement — to which she refused even as her refusal to apologise made the mob attack her and then set her body ablaze.
The Rights group wondered when Sokoto has become an Islamic State when section 10 of the Constitution recognises Nigeria as a SECULAR STATE whereby no RELIGION IS A STATE RELIGION.”
HURIWA, in a statement by Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko its National Coordinator, however blamed the management for not adequately providing her security by failing to call for police and military beef up but simply sacrificed the Christian student at the altar of religious extremism and hypocrisy.
HURIWA said religious pluralism and freedoms have suffered organised criminal attacks since President Muhammadu Buhari who before he won election in 2015 supported the introduction of full shariah law in Northern Nigeria, became President but nobody who killed Christian has ever been known to have been punished in accordance with the law of Nigeria thus creating the impression that the laws of Nigeria are not meant to be effective in the core Moslem North.
