BY POLYCARP IFEANYI / ONITSHA
President Muhammadu Buhari has been urged to review the reappointment of the Director General of Abike Dabiri due to her ethnic and religious dispositions.
The Executive Director of the Human Rights, Liberty Access and Defenders’ Foundation (HURIDE), Dede Uzor Uzor who made the call yesterday while fielding questions from journalists in Onitsha, Anambra State, accused Dabiri Erewa, a former Federal legislator of being “an ethnic and a hater of Ndigbo”.
Dede Uzor’s attack on Dabiri Erewa stemmed from a story which alleged that Dabiri chased away some Igbo traders who came to join the buses that were hired to evacuate NIgerian students from Susan to Egypt.
But Uzor who is also the chairman of Campaign for Democracy (CD) in the South East said Dabiri is a hater of Ndigbo.
“There are many of them in Nigeria but you won’t know until they are given sensitive national assignment. The same incident happened in South Africa during Xenophobia. Her attitude and body language show that she promotes Igbo hatred. It is very glaring. The recent event showed that very glaringly”.
According to the rights activist the current redefinition of citizenship of Nigeria by Dabiri is curious.
“The new definition now is that you must be a student. If you are not a student and you are NIgerian citizen, you will not be rescued. You would be allowed to be killed in Sudan. Can you imagine that calibre of public officers we have in Nigeria”.
He said it is a known fact that Igbo people travel a lot in search of greener pastures because of harsh conditions and policies targeted at them at home by people like Dabiri who are in Government.
“Who doesn’t want to live a better life here in his home land. Who doesn’t like good things in his home. Who wants to travel to another country, in a harsh and unfriendly environment before he enjoys good things. Sudan has had series of war. So, it is not the best of place to be if not for the harsh and hard condition facing Ndigbo in Nigeria”, he said.
Dede took swipe at Nigerian’s foreign policy which he described as ” dead on arrival because there is no clearly defined foreign policy in Nigeria. What is our foreign policy focus?”.
The right activist said to further show their ineptitude, one of the buses caught fire on their way to Port Sudan and nobody has told Nigerians the number of people the bus was carrying, casualties in term of death and injured. They kept it secret”.
He lamented that while nationals of other countries were being evacuated by air, Nigerian factor came into play and our own were evacuated by road.
“That is what we know how to do . Others are using aircraft , Nigeria was hiring buses to transport our people to Egypt, travelling almost 20 hours from Sudan to Egypt in a very harsh environment, without security. And it took days by President Buhari to convince his Egyptian counterpart to allow them pass through their boarder. And they said those who don’t have valid papers were not allowed. As I am talking to you, some of them were returned to University of Khartoum”.
The HURIDE boss called on the president to sack Dabiri since she is now known to be promoting ethnic and religious bias and unprofessionalism.
He said ” Nigerians do not only mean people from her own ethnic group and religion” but the entire country, lamenting that under Buhari NIgeria has been put in a tarted state and taken back for decades.
“I am unhappy, bleeding, crying because of Nigerian situation, because of situations like this. These officials are maintained by public money. So, every Nigerian in Sudan has the right to be evacuated. So, every other Nigerian who is not a student but left in Sudan should be allowed to die there because they are not students. Is this the new definition of a Nigerian?”.
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