El-Rufai, Stop Telling ‘Lies’ About Released Abductees – HURIWA

The Kaduna State government was on Monday asked to stop alleged deliberate misinformation of the public on the state of happenings in the state.

In a statement by a civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria-HURIWA, its National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko said that it was a sign of total irresponsibility for any government to claim to have rescued abductees when families of such abductees actually paid heavily for the release of their loved ones.

Alternatively,  HURIWA has asked the Kaduna State government to refund to families of victims of kidnapping all the ransoms they paid to the kidnappers before they were released.

HURIWA was reacting to a recent revelation by one Murtala Yusuf, a brother to one of the abductees  from the Kaduna airport who told Rahma TV and Radio 97.3fm Kaduna that his family actually paid N4 million ransom for the release of his sister Badiatu Gambo and her daughter Bilkisu.

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According to Yusuf when his sister and her daughter were released and were on their way out of captivity, the military came and picked them and others to the Government House where the state government claimed that the abductees were rescued by the security forces.

HURIWA believes that the Kaduna State government may be  deliberately misinforming the public on the state of affairs in the state to gain public applause whereas the opposite may actually be the case if the allegations by the families of the victims of kidnapping on the payments they made to the kidnappers  is anything to go by.

The rights group also said the deliberate misinformation of the public on the claims and counter-claims about the release of victims of kidnapping and terrorism in the state  will negatively affect the fight against terrorism and banditry in the state.

HURIWA  is of the view that taking glory for victims’ freedom when ransoms were actually paid by their families shows how insensitive the Nasiru Elrufai-led administration can be alleged to be to the  dehumanizing  plight of citizens even as the government has failed to protect the citizens that have continued  to be subjected to massacre, abduction and destruction of their ancestral communities since 2015.

HURIWA also called on the Kaduna State government and the federal government to do everything possible to ensure the safe release of the 39 pupils of the Federal College of Forestry Mechanization who were abducted by terrorists two weeks ago and the three teachers of Rema Primary School abducted in Birnin Gwari last week.

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