HURIWA urges Buhari to reform INEC, DSS leadership

Wants N’Assembly to compel re-run polls in Imo

A pro- democracy and non-governmental organisation, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to address the nation on workable measures to reform the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to make it truly independent and impartial.

HURIWA also wants the President to give clear directives to armed security operatives to treat armed Fulani herdsmen terrorising farming communities across Nigeria as terrorists, stressing that the rights group also demands the removal of the Director-General of Department of State Service (DSS), Alhaji Lawal Musa Daura, for allegedly turning the national security institution to an exclusive protection and propaganda wing of the armed Fulani herdsmen responsible for mass killings across the country.

Besides, in a statement issued by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko in Abuja yesterday, the association called on the National Assembly to compel INEC to immediately organise a re-run polls in Okigwe Senatorial Zone to enable the people elect their representative in the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Onwubiko said that it is imperative that the electoral body becomes truly independent and autonomous to stop the current undemocratic role of an undertaker put in place by the powers that be in Abuja to dictate to it which trends and positions to adopt and who should be returned conclusively elected.

The rights group said:” It was unbecoming of a body supposedly said to be independent to act in criminal collusion with some forces bent on denying the people of Nigeria their democratic and constitutional rights to elect Nigerians of their choice to govern them.

“HURIWA blamed INEC for the unnecessary bloodshed that occurred during the recent re-run election in Rivers State even as it accused INEC of undermining democracy in Imo State by refusing to conduct election in Okigwe Senatorial Zone because of the conspiracy of the Governor Rochas Okorocha administration who is actively seeking to railroad his political surrogate to occupy the position without a free and fair democratic contest.”