Kemi Adeosun should be prosecuted- HURIWA

*Condemns sack of DSS Acting DG/Nepotism in replacement:

A prominent pro-democracy and non-governmental group – HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has dismissed the reported resignation over certificate scam of minister of finance Mrs. Kemi Adeosun as an insufficient remedy for her alleged indiscretion just as it has canvassed her prosecution for forgery.

Besides, HURIWA has expressed shock that President Buhari still keeps his senior Special Assistant on public prosecution Mr. Obono Obla despite his indictment for parading fake WAEC certificate as attested to before the National Assembly by the hierarchy of the West African Examination Council (WAEC).

HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) said the slow action of the President in showing the way out or toleration of persons with alleged questionable credentials has absolutely destroyed any claim of his government waging war against corruption because a government cannot claim to go to equity with tainted and soiled hands.

HURIWA in a statement by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director Miss Zainab Yusuf also condemned Buhari’s persistent violations of the constitutionally guaranteed federal character principle as enshrined in section 14 (3) of the 1999 constitution (as amended).

Section 14 (3) provides that: “The composition of the Government of the Federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity, and also to command national loyalty, thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few State or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that Government or in any of its agencies.”

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The Rights group said the recent gale of appointments into the Department of State Services (DSS) and the Security Minting and Printing Press in which persons of Hausa/Fulani Moslem extraction were made violates section 14 (3) of the supreme law and is a precursor to the well founded plots to rig the 2019 elections in favour of the incumbent who is Fulani from Katsina State. HURIWA condemned the rising trend of nepotism and sectionslism even in the building of strategic federal government funded infrastructures luke Railways; Transportation University and dams in only Katsina state which is discriminatory against the rest of Nigeria and amounts to a constitutional breach.

HURIWA which calls the removal of the most senior Director of DSS – the Bayelsa State born and of Christian faith, citizen Mathew Seiyefa to bring in a retiree from Kano State Alhaji Yusuf Magaji Bichi by president Buhari and the appointment of his kinsman -Alhaji Abbas Umar Masanawa from Katsina to head Nigerian security printing and minting company in an election period when the agency will most likely coordinate the printing of sensitive electoral materials including ballot papers for the 2019 election is not only immoral but a total breach of the federal character principle of the constitution and should be voided.

On the rumoured resignation of Mrs. Kemi Adeosun on the strength of a court case against her over her purported parading of fake exemption certificate not issued by the National Youth Service Corp (NYSC), the Rights group has asked the management of NYSC to immediately drag her to court so she is sanctioned if found culpable or for the Attorney General of the Federation to do it himself or grant a fiat to a private entity to prosecite her over alleged forgery.

“We are of the considered opinion that the Federal Ministry of Justice or the NYSC must institute a legal proceeding against the Minister of Finance since the NYSC has ruled that the exemption certificate could not have come from them. “Her reported resignation if proven is neither sufficient nor has it paid for the severity of the alleged crime”.