THE National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), has condemned the killing of a pregnant woman, Mrs Harira Jubril, and her four children in Anambra State.
The Executive Secretary of the NHRC, Mr Tony Ojukwu, reacted to the killing in a press statement on Wednesday describing the killing of mother and children as “the worst form of criminality and human rights violation.”
Mrs Jubril and her children were killed by alleged unknown gunmen suspected to be members of the Eastern Security Network, the terrorist arm of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), who have for months visited violence on communities in the South-East.
According to Mr Ojukwu, Nigeria has been plagued by terrible reports of murders, kidnappings, armed banditry, and rape, among other crimes.
These abuses, he said, “happen on a daily basis as if the culprits no longer had a human conscience or feelings.” He called the killings a ‘gross violation’ of people’s rights to life and dignity, which are guaranteed by the Nigerian Constitution, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and other national and international human rights instruments that Nigeria has enacted or is a signatory to.
“These senseless killings are not acceptable and we as a Commission condemn it and urge that citizens must engage and collaborate with the law enforcement agents, by providing them with the necessary information that will assist them to fish out those behind these heinous and dastardly acts and ensure that they are prosecuted and possibly punished in accordance with the law,” he said.
Mr Ojukwu also called on the police to conduct a thorough inquiry into the killings of Mrs Jubril and her children as soon as possible in order to bring all parties implicated to justice.
He said, “The law enforcement agencies, particularly the police and DSS should rejig their strategies and deploy intelligence-led security to get to the root of this instant killing and lots of other killings, such as Deborah Samuel’s among others.”
Warning Nigerians against intolerance, Mr Ojukwu also stated: “We must first of all be alive peacefully as citizens before we agitate for one interest or another, and always bear in mind that setting the country on the path of violence and disunity will rather worsen or complicate our problems,” he said, as he extended the commission’s sympathies to the victims’ families and advised them and their community members to be calm and not take the law into their hands.
