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The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has tasked President Muhammadu Buhari to end the genocide and attacks on Christians and farmers by armed herdsmen and Boko Haram terrorists, which have snowballed in the last five years.
It faulted the Presidency’s diversionary tactics of chasing imaginary enemies such as the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), which it branded as a terrorist group, but had failed to declare herdsmen as terrorists.
HURIWA argued that the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), which had backed the incessant attacks on Christians dominated communities in Benue, Plateau, and Southern Kaduna State through its statements, was tacit support for the killings.
Its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko and National Media Affairs Director, Zainab Yusuf, in a statement issued yesterday in Abuja, recalled that in 2018 when 86 persons were killed in Plateau State, Miyetti Allah officials said it was a reprisal of an earlier attack.
HURIWA lamented that each time MACBAN made inciting statements capable of threatening national security, the Presidency always gave excuses to excavate its persistent, but unintelligent accusations against IPOB even at the risk of denying the widespread anti-Christian and anti-farmers violence by Boko Haram terrorists and armed herdsmen.
It also recalled that the presidency had recently accused IPOB of using false claims to deceive the United States (U.S.) and the United Kingdom (UK) just as the presidency said IPOB was using Christianity to seek U.S. special envoy to stop the genocide against Christians in Nigeria.
But in a statement at the weekend, Garba Shehu, Spokesman of President Muhammadu Buhari, said the real purpose of IPOB was to cause disagreement between the Nigerian government and its U.S. and UK allies.
HURIWA, however, dismissed his submission as “soft tissue of propaganda against IPOB and as a diversionary tactic to take the attention of the global community away from the genocide and killings of Christians and farmers by Boko Haram terrorists and herdsmen across the country.”