Ex-Buhari aide slams leaders for complicit 'silence' on killing of 16 Northerners in Edo

(FILES) In this file photo taken on October 1, 2018 Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari attends a military parade marking the country’s 58th anniversary of independence, on Eagle Square in Abuja. – President Muhammadu Buhari has suspended Nigeria’s top judge pending the outcome of his disputed trial on corruption charges, the government said on January 25, 2019. “President Buhari suspends the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Walter Samuel Nkanu Onnoghen and appoints Mr Ibrahim Tanko Muhammad as acting CJN,” presidential aide Bashir Ahmad tweeted. The announcement came ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections on February 16 — a contest in which Onnoghen would rule if any dispute emerged about the outcome, analysts say. (Photo by Sodiq ADELAKUN / AFP)

Former aide to ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, Bashir Ahmad, has condemned the killing of 16 northern hunters, calling it “barbaric and cruel.”

A mob in Uromi, Esan North Local Government Area, Edo State, lynched and burned alive sixteen northern hunters on Friday.

Reports said local vigilantes stopped the victims, who were mostly from the states of Kano and Katsina, as they were making their way back home for the upcoming Eid celebration on suspicion that they were kidnappers.

A survivor of the attack, Mustafa Ali Kassim, recounted the incident, stating that “the vigilantes started beating us as we were stepping out of the vehicle.

“After gathering us in one place, the locals joined in and continued the assault. Eventually, the vigilantes stepped back and allowed the locals to beat us while they stood idle, watching.

“Realising that we would likely be killed, some of us made a run for our lives—I was one of them. While fleeing, I encountered kind-hearted Hausa people, who gave me some money, which I used to reach the Hausa community leader here.”

Ahmad, in a statement on Saturday demanding justice for the victims, said that “there is absolutely no whatsoever way to justify the barbaric and cruel” incident, noting that those who either justified the killings or remained silent, calling such silence “complicity.”

“Their only crime was returning home after a successful hunting expedition, they were traveling with their dane guns, hunting dogs with valid permits, all in accordance with the law,” Ahmad wrote on X.

“They were on their way back home to celebrate the upcoming Eid with their families, only to be falsely accused, beaten, lynched, and burned alive in the most inhumane and unimaginable way. And yet, some people here have the audacity to justify this cruelty while some stay silent simply because they are comfortable with the heinous acts in Edo. That silence is complicity.

“Let’s be clear hunting is a lawful activity worldwide, as long as it is licensed and done responsibly. If the murdered hunters were truly a threat, how did they pass through Rivers, Bayelsa, Delta, Benin and several other villages along the way without any incident or being apprehended by the security, only to be attacked in Uromi, near Auchi, and then Okene (North)?

“This was absolutely not a case of self-defense — it was cold-blooded murder, and we will not remain silent. We will not rest until justice is served for every single one of those innocent men. Their blood cries out, and so will we — until justice is served.”