Soldiers Dehumanize Passengers Traveling To South East, HURIWA Tells CDS, Service Chiefs

Soldiers Dehumanize Passengers Traveling To South East, HURIWA Tells CDS, Service Chiefs

The Human Right Writers Association urged the Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Gwabin Musa, and the Service Chiefs “to immediately activate pragmatic mechanisms to stamp out all sorts of dehumanising treatments being meted out to travellers in the Southeast region by operatives of security services manning roadblocks.”

The Human Rights Writers Association (HURIWA) has alleged that for over five years, passengers travelling through military roadblocks in South East Nigeria have been subjected to degrading, dehumanizing, and disgusting treatment.

These security operatives, according to Onwubiko, do not even bother to conduct any searches on the vehicles but simply derive joy in allowing passengers to go through embarrassing and disturbing ordeals.

The Rights group said that these mistreatments and dehumanizing conditions imposed on travellers by the military operatives who run roadblocks in the Southeast region are unconstitutional and illegal.

HURIWA further underscores the necessity of military operatives being made to observe the rules of engagement that will not go contrary to universal human rights laws, including those provisions in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Covenants on civil and political rights, and the African human and peoples’ rights principles,” Onwubiko added.

HURIWA expressed excitement at the decision of the Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Gwabin Musa, to appoint a senior advisor on human rights with a full-fledged office within the institution.

The Rights group stated that “the decision could signpost a positive and constructive development that, if our analysis is correct, can only mean that the topmost serving military officer has the greatest inclination towards showing respect for the rule of law and respect for the human rights of citizens and members of the armed forces.”

HURIWA also threw its weight behind the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Abia State Council, which has recently stated, “Congress observes with perplexity and condemns in very strong terms the ongoing humiliation and dehumanization of commuters at some military checkpoints on the Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway, especially at the NNPC Mega Filling Station junction, Umuahia; Abia State University, Uturu (ABSU) junction; Onuaku Uturu near the border with Ebonyi State; among others.”