By Robert Egbe
The Human Rights Monitoring Agenda (HURMA) on Monday canvassed the convocation of a national conference on security to address national challenges.
It said reports from its various units around the country suggested that open banditry, ritual killings, kidnapping, suicide and other incidents of insecurity were commonplace.
The group said it was not too late for the President Muhammadu Buhari administration and the All Progressive Congress (APC) to “change the perception that open gangsterism is officially sanctioned and legalised.”
HURMA Executive Director, Comrade Buna Olaitan Isiak, stated this during a conference on “State of the nation” at the non-governmental organisation (NGO)’s national secretariat at Onipanu, Lagos.
“We have equally strongly observed that the root of various crises is the broad economic gap between members of the ruling class and the ruled, the have and the have-not,” Isiak said.
According to him, elected political office holders “have turned become oppressors with a power they derived from our collective wealth.
“There is lack of transparency and accountability which is central to tenet of good governance.
“One of our Comrades, Agba Jalingo is presently incarcerated for asking questions around accountability from his state governor in Cross River State.”
HURMA called for Jalingo’s unconditional release.
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The group also condemned the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for deregistering “alternative political parties”.
It said it considered this “an encouragement of corruption and banditry in our political life.”
According to HURMA, “INEC is now being used as an instrument to close the democratic space for a genuine alternative party to develop.”
It demanded the resignation of INEC Chairman Prof Mahmood Yakubu, for “caving in into undemocratic and unconstitutional agenda which has eroded our confidence in him.”
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