Pro-democracy and civil rights advocacy group: HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has specifically asked the minister or Defence General Chritopher Musa (rtd) to mobilise every available resources in the Defence architecture of Nigeria to rescue the family members of Mr. Ahmed Zakka together with his wife and his toddler.
HURIWA has also tasked all the military service chiefs, the Director General of the Department of State Services, the IGP and the NSA to direct for the implementation of strategic joint operations of the security agencies to rescue the over 2,000 citizens kidnapped by terrorists just as the terrorists must be apprehended, prosecuted and punished in the most severest of ways.
HURIWA also demanded for the umpteenth time that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu should immediately excuse the two ministers in the ministry of Defence namely General Christopher Gwabin Musa the Defence minister and Senator Bello Mattawalle the minister of State for Defence, from the politically distracting duties of coordination of sections within the elaborate Presidential Campaign Council for the re-election of the incumbent president just as the Rights group argued strongly that it is a massive disservice that president Tinubu is doing by insisting that the two key stakeholders in the ministry of Defence should be shouldered with added partisan commitments as heads of certain departments within the political campaign Council at this perilous time that Nigeria is confronting an all out war declared on Nigerians by a motley of armed non-state actors, terrorists and genocidal killers.
HURIWA called the attention of both the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria President Tinubu and the minister of Defence to the video posted by the terrorists from a deadly jungle located in Kaduna State which is the homestead of the minister of Defence General Christopher Musa in which the distraught father of the toddler carrying the innocent baby that could be seen weeping uncontrollably being carried by the baby’s tortured father and his distressed and dehumanised wife who were asking for the help of the government and people of Nigeria to secure their freedom from captivity. The video of this captured, tortured, dehumanised and mistreated baby and the baby’s parents should pinch the consciences of the political office holders in Nigeria to prioritise the security and well-being of citizens far above partisan considerations.
“How does the minister of Defence General Chritopher Musa feel to attend the inauguration of the expanded and revised Presidential Campaign Council of All Progressives Congress on Wednesday when terrorists have continuously kidnapped citizens from his state/homestead and several other flashpoints across the length and breath of Nigeria whilst the duo of ministers of Defence and minister of state for defence are fully committed to playing significant roles in the Presidential Council of the APC thereby abandoning the mandate of their high public offices?
HURIWA obsetved thus: “We are not doing this clarion call for the rescue of this baby and the parents to publicly call out the minister of Defence or his counterpart, but this is a Compassionate appeal to them and the president to immediately activate mechanisms to rescue this innocent baby and his Parents Mr & Mrs. Ahmed Zakka who were abducted by fully armed terrorists from their Millennium City House located in Kaduna metropolitan area.”
The Rights group in a media statement endorsed by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Nnadozie Onwubiko stated that constitutionally, the president is obligated to secure lives and property of citizens as his primary constitutional duty even as the minister of Defence and the minister of State for Defence are the front line supervisors of the Armed Forces of Nigeria. HURIWA therefore wonders why the president has burdened them with political campaign roles when terrorists have declared war on Nigeria in a way that appears that President Tinubu is a man whose ‘house’ literally is on fire and he is busy chasing rats”.
The Rights group said it is a massive failure on the part of this administration to watch almost helplessly as over two thousand citizens are currently being held in captivity by terrorists as if to say that Nigeria is a failed state. The Rights group stated that this case of a toddler being carried by his father and his mother that had just delivered the innocent baby as they are in the captivity of terrorists demonstrates a lack of commitment, determination and the will-power on the part of president Tinubu to fulfil the constitutional obligations of guaranteeing security for Nigerians and ensure the well-being and welfare of the citizens.
COMRADE EMMANUEL NNADOZIE ONWUBIKO,
National Coordinator,
HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA). TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13TH, 2026.
