The Prominent Civil Rights Advocacy group-HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has faulted the provocative; orchestrated  and unwarranted media persecution of the vocal critic of the current President Muhammadu Buhari, and the erstwhile Senator who represented Kaduna Central Senatorial District in the 8th session of the National Assembly Comrade SHEHU SANI by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) just as the Rights group has asked the anti-graft commission to adhere strictly to the constitutional principle of Rule of law by calling off the persistent one sided charade of media persecution of SHEHU SANI using the so-called investigations over allegations of impersonation or fraud.

HURIWA said the avalanche of seemingly sponsored salacious and sexed up tales exported to the media spaces by the agents of the EFCC with the sole aim of soiling the image of the Kaduna born civil Rights Activist Comrade SHEHU SANI based on only the claims made by his accuser and the Kaduna based motor dealer Alhaji Sani Dauda of the ASD motors Kaduna even before the Court of competent jurisdiction is ceased of the matter shows the extensive and compulsive desperation of the hierarchy of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)headed by the acting Chairman Alhaji Ibrahim Magu to nail Senator SHEHU SANI and to attempt to silence him for life to give the paymaster of EFCC President Muhammadu Buhari the breathing space to continue in the dramatic undermining of constitutional democracy and to become a totalitarian regime.  “There is little doubt that the current Totalitarian President is absolutely intolerant of constructivecriticism and is afraid of media freedoms.”

HURIWA said:”We in the organised human rights community have chosen to first of all restrain ourselves from jumping into the media fray to defend the detained civil Rights advocacy leader Comrade SHEHU SANI because we thought that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) would have by now adopted the global best practices and put a total stop to all media orchestrations and stampeding with the aim of first of all achieving through the illegal backdoor channel the total demonisation of a citizen in its custody before even heading to court to obtain an experte to further detain the citizen, deprive him of his civil liberties and freedoms and to further instigate rounds of one sided media warfare against the Nigerian citizen even when section 36(5) of the Nigerian Constitution in a very unambiguous fashion provided that all accused persons are innocent in the eyes of the law. However, we have broken our dignified silence because of the continuous media orchestrations and unjustifiable trial of the Kaduna born civil Rights advocate Comrade SHEHU SANI who we suspect may be a victim of the political vendetta of the current administration that has zero tolerance approach to civilised opposition and the exercises of all constitutional freedoms guaranteed under the chapter 4 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and all international human rights laws and statutes which have a globalised benchmark of demanding that an accused person be granted fair hearing and that the independent judiciary must be granted unfettered opportunities to arrive at a determination that is right, just, fair, independent and unbiased”.

“The style of the current EFCC to always depend on half baked media propaganda to damage accused persons in their custody has continued to paint Nigeria as a failed state or a Banana republic.  Nigerians must not keep silent and allow citizens to be unduly profiled as criminals based on some tissues of uninvestigated allegations from someone who by his own admission said he has a score to settle with the EFCC or that he has cases that the EFCC may be handling or both.   Is it not possible that the entire scenario is a charade set up to rope in the foremost critic of the current President with the eventual prize of granting the accuser a soft landing for agreeing to be used as the canon fodder in the demolition through illegal processes of the most vocal critic of the current President who has no tolerance of any type to even using his name for comedy? More so, we have it on the authority of the claims of the Kaduna born civil Rights leader that what transpired between him and Alhaji Sani Dauda was purely a commercial transaction of buying a car or not. WHEN has the EFCC become a debt collector to an extent that it is vigourously holding on to only one side of the claims and running to the media on daily basis with that seemingly unproven allegations without first allowing the Court of competent jurisdiction to exercise their powers and authorities as enshrined in the Constitution in Section 6? These things and illegal ways of law enforcement will eternally damage Nigeria’s constitutional path to good governance and respect for the human rights of the citizens which is the basis of our sovereignty”.

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