Rights groups blast GOPRI over protest against Amnesty International

THE Foundation for Human Rights and Anti-Corruption Crusade (FHRACC) and the Ijaw Peoples Development Initiative (IPDI) have lashed out on the Global Peace and Rescue Initiative (GOPRI) for staging a protest in Abuja that Amnesty International should vacate the country.

The Niger Delta-based human rights groups described the development as not only embarrassingly worrisome, but a design to entrench lawlessness in the country.

National President of FHRACC, Alaowei Cleric Esq., in a separate statement made available to TribuneOnline in Warri, Delta State, said GOPRI “only succeeded in telling the world that Nigeria is a banana republic that must be ruled by brute force or crazy laws.”

According to him, Nigeria is a signatory to the many international treaties that seek to protect indigent people’s rights and therefore cannot be excluded from the international rights body.

“Our constitution under section 12 gives life to those treaties. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter on Human and People’s Right forbid arbitrary killing of human being even during a period of war.

Right to life is so sacrosanct that the State is prevented to take human life even during war. Only few exceptional cases are permitted for the state to take human life.

The war in the North East does not give security agencies absolute power to take human lives arbitrarily.

If there are any of such barbaric incidences taken place in the region, what is wrong broadcasting same? The people of the North East have right to life that must not be unduly trampled upon.

Amnesty International should not be vilified for reporting human rights abuses by security agencies in Nigeria. That is the beauty of democracy in practice,” he averred.

In the same vein, national president of IPDI, Comrade Austin Ozobo, in a statement made available to TribuneOnline in Warri, described the protest against AI as sponsored by fifth columnists who take pleasure in the shedding of innocent blood in the embattled north east of the country.

Ozobo demanded the arrest of the Executive Director of the group, Comrade Melvin Ejeh and his sponsors, adding that “they do not represent our interest as a people and if the military has any case against AI, let them challenge them in court of competent jurisdiction.”

The Niger Delta activist asked rhetorically: “Where were Global Peace and Rescue Initiative when Boko Haram IDP camps in the North east were bombed by the military and several persons were killed?

Is this not abuse of rights or genocidal killings? Where were they for the several unlawful arrests in Niger Delta and unlawful killing of 7 Ijaw youths by the military in Delta state in 2012? Is these not abuse rights?

Where were GOPRI, when a cripple was brutalized over wearing of army camouflage in Anambra and assault on a nursing mother in Lagos last week?

Where were the paid protesters for the killing of Biafra protesters, bombing of Niger Delta communities and killing of citizens, bombing of Ayakoromo community in 2010 and killing of several persons, which was given mass burial?

Why didn’t they protest when thousands of people were unlawfully killed by religious fanatics in southern Kaduna?

What about the indiscriminate herdsmen killing of citizens in Benue, Delta, Edo, Ogun, Imo and other parts of the country, where were they?”

He admonished Nigerians to ignore the protesters, saying they were doing the bid of their pay masters.