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The Human Rights
Writers’ Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has called for the creation of
a commission under the presidency to coordinate religious dialogues
among Nigerians.

The association
made the call in Abuja on Tuesday in a statement signed by its national
coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, and director, media affairs, Zainab
Yusuf, asking that the commission should be empowered to identify those
who always sponsored religious and political violence for prosecution
and punishment at the specially created anti-terrorism tribunal.

The group also
urged the Federal Government to immediately probe allegations from
several quarters that some members of the current military task force
were allegedly compromised and were active collaborators with the armed
attackers.

The group blamed
government for the continuous mass murders in the state, saying “it has
clearly shown total lack of political will to decisively deal with the
well known patrons and sponsors of the previous violent unrests in that
state.”

It also called on
President Goodluck Jonathan to “seriously look at workable ways and
means of tackling the violence in Plateau, because it has the dangerous
domino effects of spreading to other parts of the country, including
the nation’s capital.”

Legal points

The association
appealed to the Chief Justice of Nigeria and the Attorney-General and
Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke, to actively lobby the National
Assembly to pass the pending anti-terrorism bill into law.

It said the bill
should entail a provision for the creation of a special anti-terrorism
tribunal with stiff penalty of life jail to be handed to convicted
offenders.

The group condemned
what it termed ‘a slap on the wrist,’ and ‘friendly sentences’ handed
down by the Federal High Court, Jos division, to some suspected
culprits in the previous crises in Jos.

“It is
inconceivable that some of those prosecuted for the previous violent
killings in parts of Plateau were awarded lenient sentences of less
than five years by a Federal High Court judge in the Jos division,” it
said.

“This explains the
reason why such dastardly acts of gruesome mass murder of innocent
Nigerians will continue; so far as the perpetrators are assured of
lenient judicial sanction by the courts, if caught and prosecuted.”

The group also
expressed its belief that the perpetrators of the violent killings
believe that their political godfathers are so well connected in high
places and that their trial in the law courts can be compromised, so as
to obtain soft treatment.

A group called JAMA’ATU AHLUS-SUNNAH LIDDA’AWATI WAL JIHAD late on Monday, claimed the responsibility for the attack in Jos.

“We are doing this
jihad to re-establish the Islamic system and that Allah deen become
supreme in this country, Nigeria. he colonials came and destroy the
then Usmaniyya Caliphate and bring about secularism and western system
of education,” it said.