HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has condemned the inaction and apparent silence of the President of Nigeria after the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) fighters said they have killed M. Uba, a brigadier general, following the ambush of a convoy of soldiers and operatives of the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) in Borno state.
HURIWA, the frontline civil society organization said the circumstances surrounding the capture of Brigadier General Uba by the Islamic terrorists and his gruesome killing execution style, is emblematic of the unprecedented penetration of the defence and national security architecture by terrorists just as HURIWA said any functional government in any civilised nation that loses a serving military General would by now be launching the most massive counter insurgency attacks with the aim of decimating, degrading and defeating the terrorists. “Why is the Nigerian State normalising the abnormalities? Why are citizens slaughtered, military Generals and officers killed by terrorists but government keeps going about business as usual without taking any publicly known concrete actions to show national and collective outrage?”
HURIWA said the fact that it seemed like the military General was left to be captured by the military institution going by his last conversations as widely publicised just as the ability of the terrorists to track down his location by breaching the communication architecture of the military and then used the information of gis location provided to the hierarchy of the Armed forces of Nigeria to precisely locate him, demonstrates either that there are many agents and affiliates of the terrorists embedded in the ARMY as claimed previously by the Borno state governor Professor Babagana Umara Zulum and several other security analysts in Nigeria or that our national security communications infrastructure is sabotaged.
“HURIWA expected that by now, the higher authority in the Armed forces of Nigeria would have set up investigative panel to uncover how the communication network of the security forces of Nigeria was infiltrated by ISWAP who reportedly traced the precise location of the General and his subsequent execution. Then why did the Nigeria Army lied to Nigerians that General Uba returned to base successfully with his troops after beating the ambush of ISWAP? Why are the flag of Nigeria not flying at half mast to signify the severity of the disgraceful capture of a whole serving General for the umpteenth time by ISWAP? Why did the ARMY not learn lessons from the year 2021 capture of a serving General by ISWAP?”
HURIWA recalled that the terrorists ambushed the troops on Friday at Damboa Road along Wajiroko in Borno when they were transporting some military equipment.
The ISWAP fighters reportedly opened fire on the military convoy along the road — an incident that led to a gun duel between the troops and the insurgents.
At least 17 military motorcycles were seized by the ISWAP fighters, while two CJTF operatives and two soldiers were killed during the gun battle.
HURIWA recalled that following the ambush, international news channels reported that there were reports that Uba had been abducted by the insurgents.
However, Onyechi Anele, the army spokesperson, denied the reports on Saturday, insisting that the brigadier general battled the “insurgents’ ambush with superior firepower,” forcing them to withdraw in disarray and abandon their mission.
She said Uba led the troops back to the military base, adding that during the gun duel, two CJTF operatives and two soldiers were killed
Uba was also reported to have released a video statement, confirming he was alive, unharmed, and fully in command.
HURIWA however recalled that Reuters reported that the terrorist group has executed the military general after he was captured. “We wonder how the Nigeria Army is really feeling the impact of brazenly lying to Nigerians that the General wasn’t executed only for foreign news channels to quote materials and information from the terrorists showing proof that General Uba was executed like a common criminal by the Islamist terrorists.
Reuters, quoting a statement posted on its Amaq propaganda channel, said ISWAP claimed responsibility for the ambush.
HURIWA is also criticised the absence of a national broadcast by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu following this high profile incident of the killing by ISWAP of a serving General of the Armed forces of Nigeria just as the Rights group said the killing of the top ranking military officer should have made the security institutions commanded by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to declare that Nigeria is at war or to even escalate the threat level and then expand the counter terrorism war in the Country with a specific timeline given to the heads of the security forces to defeat the terrorists.
“It is sad that the General was let down by the institution of the Army to be slaughtered like a sacrificial lamb by terrorists and some of these same terrorists who were captured by the federal government in the past few months were reintegrated, rehabilitated with taxpayers money and let off the hook to return to the same communities in which they unleashed widespread bloodshed.
Why is the Nigerian State in an unholy communion with Islamic terrorists and when the USA offered to assist to bomb these terrorists out of existence, the current government has been kicking against the offer by President Donald John Trump to wipe out terrorists,” HURIWA affirmed.
*COMRADE EMMANUEL NNADOZIE ONWUBIKO,
