Idowu Abdullahi Civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, has alleged that the Tuesday attack on Abia St...
Idowu Abdullahi
Civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers
Association of Nigeria, has alleged that the Tuesday attack on Abia State
cattle market, which claimed eight persons, was carried out by “members of the
deep state and foreign mercenaries”.
This is as the group also alleged that the attackers are
“members of the security forces or foreign mercenaries hired by Miyetti Allah
Cattle Owners Association”, to resist the anti-open grazing legislation in the
South-East.
The group made the allegation in a statement jointly signed
by HURIWA National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, and its National Media
Director, Miss Zainab Yusuf, on Thursday.
The group, in the statement titled, ‘Abia Cattle Market
Attack Done to Inflict War on South-East: – Says HURIWA’, noted that the attack
was aimed at “instigating killing of Ndigbo living in the far North and to
spread civil conflicts between Igbo and their Northern brethren”.
The statement read in part, “We urge the Ohanaeze Ndigbo,
Governors of the South-East of Nigeria and the Igbo World Congress to jointly
hire forensic and security experts and investigators from any part of the world
to uncover the exact identities of the so-called unknown gunmen who the rights
group believed are members of the security forces or foreign mercenaries hired
by Miyetti Allah Cattle Owners Association angered by the anti-open grazing
legislation in the South-East.
“And are now on a mission to start off civil war by
attacking peaceful cattle owners just so the North will boil in anger and to transfer
the aggression and reprisals on peaceful Igbo citizens of Nigeria living
legitimately with their Northern brothers/sisters.”
It added, “The South-East of Nigeria is under attack by
outsiders who want to cash in on the nebulous anti-cow posture of IPOB to
attack northerners in the East so as to achieve their daredevil agenda and the
silence and wilful inability of Nigeria’s security forces to uncover who the
unknown gunmen are points to larger conspiratorial plots against the South-East
of Nigeria by enemies of the Igbo”.
The group, however, urged the Abia State Governor, Okezie
Ikpeazu, to rally round South-East political leaders in launching an intensive
manhunt for perpetrators of orchestrated violence, which it claimed, was aimed
at destroying the region.
The rights group also appealed to all aggrieved persons in
the region to consider the need to promote peaceful coexistence always.
Furthermore, HURIWA urged northern groups to stop
“sensationalising the unfortunate attacks in the Abia State cattle market which
it believed was executed not by the Igbo but by those who hate Igbo”.
“The Igbo man and woman are the most peaceful and hospitable
citizens and are not known for carrying out bloody violence on their visitors
who live amongst them. The Northerners living in the East are like every Igbo
person and so the Igbo respect the sanctity of life.”
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