Prominent civil rights advocacy group-HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has asked the Nigerian Army to use the same strategy in combination with the Department of State Services (DSS) it adopted in bursting the captors of Lieutenant JJ Johnson in a forest near Okigwe to track the armed Fulani terrorists that invaded over 42 farming communities in Eha Amufu, Enugu State and slaughtered over 50 farmers without any trace of their whereabouts.
Besides, HURIWA believes that the illegal Monday’s sit-at-home order by some renegades and the enforcement and attendant killings of innocents Igbo people going about their legitimate duties would have stopped if President Muhammadu Buhari directs the Service Chiefs, the Director General of Department of State Services and the Inspector-General of Police to immediately roll out strategies to stop the enforcement by the armed hoodlums of the illegal sit-at-home order. HURIWA however thinks that the chaos in the South East precipitated by the illegal sit-at-home order fits into the agenda of the Northern Muslim hawks working in the office of the President in Abuja who are hoping that the South East should become unstable and lawless because of their endemic virus of Igbophobia.
HURIWA said the efficiency, speed, accuracy and high valued intelligence deployed by the combined team of the Nigerian Army drawn from 82 Division Enugu were lacking whilst suspected armed marauders made up mostly of armed Fulani terrorists laid siege on travellers along the Nsukka to Enugu Highway and kidnapped scores of people including a one time health commissioner in Enugu State.
Relatedly, the Rights group said the Army, Police and DSS were regrettably found wanting when the armed herdsmen forced their way into 42 farming communities in Eha-Amufu just before the Christmas festivity and staged a festival of blood, anarchy and destruction resulting in the mauling to death of over 50 innocent farmers of Igbo extraction.
HURIWA wonders how come the Army had to use these amazing skills to track the kidnappers that claimed to be unknown gunmen who abducted and tortured a young Igbo born Army officer of the rank of Lieutenant who was taken away from her Father’s home in Ihube Okigwe by the heartless armed terrorists masquerading about as unknown gunmen and taken to the forests, stripped naked and video taped just as their video trended on the Internet in which they threatened to kill the officer in their captivity, but the same armed forces can’t crush armed herdsmen.
HURIWA said it was scandalous that security sources stated that the armed herdsmen that attacked Eha-Amufu armed with state of the arts sophisticated artillery weapons of mass destruction allegedly outnumbered the soldiers and local vigilantes, and thereby launched the attack on that early Sunday morning, adding that several people were killed numbering over 50. “It is incredible to hear that untrained armed non state actors defeated a professional Army unit detailed to protect the People of Enugu State but when their member (Lt.JJ Johnson) was abducted, the Army found their mojo and acted as soon as possible to free her which to us is a phenomenal feat which the Army should adopt uniformly.”
Citing credible media report, HURIWA disclosed that a top security source gave his impression of the terrorist attack by Fulani herdsmen in Eha-Amufu thus: “As I speak to you, we are combing bushes in search of the bodies of those killed. I can’t tell now the exact number of people killed. From the report I received, the armed herdsmen and their collaborators from Benue State communities launched the attack around 5:30 am to 6 am this Sunday morning. Before we got there, several people have been killed. “We are just a few soldiers here and where we are based is a little bit far from the community. There are no other security operatives from other security agencies here in Eha-Amufu helping except the local vigilantes. They (vigilantes) first engaged them but the invading armed herdsmen outnumbered them,” a security source said.
HURIWA which commended the Nigerian Army and the Department of State Services for swiftly rescuing Lieutenant J.J. Johnson from the captivity of the so-called unknown gunmen, however has charged the Armed Forces to adopt a single yardstick in decisively crushing armed terrorists of all ethnicities because the perception is that because the President and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is Fulani like the armed herdsmen, the security agencies may be under subtle Command not to crush armed herdsmen attacking farming communities in the South of Nigeria and Christian dominated communities in the North.