By Our Correspondent
The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has demanded the immediate cessation of what it describes as the unconstitutional harassment and intimidation of JKD Radio/Television journalist, Zainab Salihu Yabagi, by the Kaduna State Police Command.

HURIWA is particularly alarmed by reports that the police declared the female journalist wanted over a video explainer concerning Ibrahim Masari, a Special Adviser to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, after heavily armed police personnel reportedly invaded the Millennium City, Kaduna studios of JKD Radio/Television on September 11, 2026.

According to reports available to HURIWA, the police initially claimed they were searching for Yabagi in connection with a “stolen phone.” However, during the operation, the organisation’s General Manager, Charles Abah, and a security personnel were reportedly arrested and detained for more than seven hours.

It was subsequently stated that Yabagi was being sought over allegations including criminal conspiracy, defamation, cyberstalking and bullying allegedly connected to Masari.

HURIWA therefore calls on the Inspector-General of Police, Tunde Disu, to immediately direct the Kaduna State Police Command to stop forthwith any harassment, intimidation or arbitrary pursuit of the journalist and other employees of JKD Radio/Television over the disputed broadcast.

If the Special Adviser believes that the broadcast defamed him, the appropriate response is to approach a competent court and seek redress, not to deploy the coercive machinery of the state against a journalist.

HURIWA strongly cautions against the abuse of the Cybercrime Prohibition Act as a convenient instrument for suppressing legitimate journalism and criticism. A cybercrime law must not become a backdoor mechanism for turning civil disputes over alleged defamation into criminal investigations, arrests and intimidation.

The Constitution is clear on the important role of the media. Section 22 of the 1999 Constitution places a constitutional responsibility on the press, radio, television and other mass media to hold government accountable and ensure that government remains responsible to the people.

Journalists cannot effectively discharge that constitutional responsibility if they are made to operate under the constant threat of police arrest simply because a public official is displeased with a report, commentary or video explainer.

HURIWA is not saying that journalists are above the law. Where there is credible evidence of a criminal offence, due process should be followed. But due process cannot mean sending armed police officers to raid a media organisation, arrest its personnel and declare a journalist wanted over a matter that can be subjected to judicial scrutiny.

The alleged use of police power in this manner is particularly troubling because of the reported involvement of a person serving as a Special Adviser to the President. No political appointment, proximity to the Presidency or access to government machinery should confer immunity from criticism or create a private police force for settling personal grievances.

HURIWA therefore urges the IGP to immediately review the circumstances surrounding the Kaduna operation and ensure that the police do not become instruments of self-help in what may essentially be a dispute over alleged defamation.

The Federal Government must also ensure that journalists, broadcasters and media organisations are allowed to operate freely, safely and without fear of arbitrary arrest, intimidation or reprisals.

The growing resort to criminal complaints, police invitations, arrests and searches against journalists over their professional activities risks further shrinking Nigeria’s civic space and weakening one of the constitutional pillars of democratic accountability.

HURIWA demands that the police stop forthwith the harassment of Zainab Salihu Yabagi and JKD Radio/Television and that any person alleging defamation should pursue the remedy available under the law rather than resort to state coercion.

By George Mgbeleke

The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has condemned in the strongest terms the reported death of 37 suspected illegal miners in the custody of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) in Niger State, describing the incident as a grave state-sponsored human rights violation that must not be swept under the carpet.
In a statement by national coordinator of HURIWA ,Comrade Emmanuel Nnadozie Onwubiko, the group said Nigeria cannot continue to operate a system in which citizens are arrested alive by security agencies, taken into lawful custody and subsequently die in detention without an immediate, transparent and independent account of what happened to them.
The rights group says the reported deaths of the suspects in Minna raise disturbing questions about what occurred between the time they were arrested around the M.I. Wushishi/Lukoto axis on September 15 and 16, 2026, and the time their bodies were deposited at the General Hospital, Minna.
HURIWA asks bluntly: How did 37 people arrested alive end up dead in the custody of a government security agency?
The organisation says the sheer number of deaths makes the incident too serious to be treated as an ordinary internal disciplinary matter.
HURIWA notes that the NSCDC has announced an investigative panel and said the cause of death has not been medically or laboratory confirmed. The organisation welcomes the decision to investigate but insists that the NSCDC cannot investigate itself and expect Nigerians to accept the outcome as independent.
According to HURIWA, an institution whose personnel had custody of the deceased cannot simultaneously be the investigator, potential accused party and final authority determining whether its own officers bear responsibility.
“You cannot arrest citizens alive, lock them up under your custody and then investigate yourselves when they emerge dead. That is not independent justice,” HURIWA says.
The organisation therefore demands that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the Federal Government immediately constitute an independent judicial or multi-agency panel of inquiry into the deaths.
HURIWA wants the panel to include independent forensic pathologists, medical experts, the National Human Rights Commission, civil society representatives and other credible institutions with no connection to the detention operation.
The group demands full autopsies and independent laboratory and toxicological examinations to determine the precise cause of every death.
It also demands that investigators establish the condition of each suspect at the point of arrest, the number of detainees held, the cells and facilities used, the duration of detention, food and water provided, medical treatment administered, personnel on duty and every movement or transfer involving the suspects.
HURIWA further demands that all available CCTV footage, detention registers, medical records, arrest records, duty rosters and communication logs relating to the detainees be preserved and subjected to independent scrutiny.
The organisation says any officer found, after due process, to have unlawfully caused, facilitated or negligently contributed to the deaths must face criminal prosecution, including murder or other appropriate charges where the evidence supports such charges.
HURIWA also calls for the immediate suspension of officers directly implicated by preliminary evidence, pending the outcome of the independent investigation.
The rights group says officers of the state must understand that lawful custody does not confer a licence to abuse, torture, neglect or unlawfully expose detainees to conditions capable of causing death.
“A suspect is not a corpse. An arrest warrant is not a death warrant. Custody is not a licence to kill,” HURIWA says.
The organisation demands that the families of all the deceased be formally notified, allowed access to independent medical information and involved in the process of establishing the circumstances surrounding the deaths.
Where state responsibility is established, HURIWA demands ₦100 million compensation for each deceased victim, in addition to prosecution of responsible officials and any other remedies available under Nigerian law.
HURIWA says the Federal Government must also immediately account for every person currently detained in connection with the Niger State mining enforcement operation and ensure that their health, safety and fundamental rights are protected.
The organisation warns against any attempt to attribute the deaths to an alleged disease before credible medical and laboratory evidence establishes such a conclusion.
HURIWA says the deaths must not disappear into the familiar cycle of arrest, death, internal investigation and silence.
The group insists that Nigeria’s security agencies must understand that the constitutional rights of citizens do not disappear at the entrance of a detention facility.
HURIWA therefore calls on the Federal Government to treat the Niger deaths as a national human rights emergency and immediately establish an independent inquiry capable of determining responsibility, securing justice for the dead and preventing a repetition.

By Chief(Dr) Chekwas Okorie

I wish to state unequivocally that all our people who are pushed by our painful and unbearable situation in Nigeria to embark on and demand for our self-determination in Nigeria or outright exit for a separate state of Biafra are within their inalienable rights to do so. It is on record that the president of Nigeria Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu stated boldly and publicly that he did not believe in one Nigeria. He made this statement, which was widely published in Nigerian newspapers when he lost faith in the unity and oneness of Nigeria. Some years later, he became the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria without being restrained as a result of disowning Nigeria in the past.
Our leader, the General of the Peoples Army, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, who led the Biafran Armed Forces to successfully resist the war of annihilation mounted on the people of Biafra (1967-1970) was granted presidential pardon in 1982 by President Shehu Shagari. He returned to Nigeria from self exile and lived out the rest of his life with his people until 2011 when he joined our ancestors.
The resumed struggle for a separate state of Biafra has been prosecuted in several different ways by multiple groups since 1999 when MASSOB first emerged to 2012 when IPOB took the center stage under the leadership of Onyendu Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. There are many other groups that sprang up along the line with similar objectives for approximately 27 years. I do not want to belabor the fact of the collateral damage and economic costs of this adventure. I only wish to point out that the time to review the strategy, tactics, and methodology in seeking our quest for self-determination, freedom, and place of pride in Nigeria has come. As recently as Monday, 14th September 2026, the leaders of Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Welsh met to formulate a joint initiative to exit from the United Kingdom. In the same token, some geopolitical or regional zones in Nigeria may take similar concerted initiatives to redraw the political map of Nigeria at the fullness of time without violence.
There are over 100 active groups struggling for separation from the country they belong to in the world today, and only a few have the chances of referendum.
On June 19, 2021, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of IPOB, was abducted at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi and flown to Nigerian on June 27, 2021.
The extraordinary rendition of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu from Kenya and his unending efforts to obtain justice from the Nigerian courts have been infuriating and provocative to a cross section of the Igbo people in Nigeria and abroad. Prominent Igbo leaders and my humble self as well as well-meaning Nigerian statesmen have appealed to the Nigerian authorities to apply political solutions and release Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and other Igbo political prisoners to foster national reconciliation. These appeals have been treated with contempt and ignominy. Mazi Nnamdi Kanu remains the symbol of Igbo dilemma in Nigeria. The President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Senator John Azuta-Mbata, on two separate occasions, spoke the minds of the entire Igbo Nation when he stated that it is the Igbo people that are in prison for as long as Mazi Nnamdi Kanu remains in prison. All efforts made by the late Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, as the President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo to pay a courtesy visit to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu with a delegation of Ohanaeze Ndigbo to seek a political resolution of this matter was rebuffed without the minimum respect of replying to Chief Iwuanyanwu’s letters. The Senator Azuta-Mbata led Ohanaeze Ndigbo has also not been received by the President on this matter that is of great concern to Ndigbo.

APPEAL.

In about four months, Nigerians will be going to the polls to elect a new set of leaders and representatives at all levels in a general election. This democratic exercise happens once in four years in Nigeria.
God has given us a large population and an outstanding geographical spread in Nigeria. There is no state in Nigeria that the Igbo people can not muster at least twenty-five percent of the voting population. Similarly, Igbo people constitute the second largest population by ethnicity in thirty-one states, and the FCT and ninety-nine percent of the population in the Southeast geopolitical zone.
In the Nigerian democracy population and spread are the most potent force for political power and relevance. When effectively deployed, we will regain our respect in Nigeria and secure what is due to us in the Federation without firing a shot.
I appeal to our people in the name of God to deploy the advantage the Almighty God has so graciously granted us and make a resounding political statement and secure the unconditional release of our son Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and his colleagues without having to kow-tow to anybody that will ridicule and insult us in the process.
There is nobody or groups who genuinely wish to see Mazi Nnamdi Kanu free in the nearest future that will be a party to any plot to dissuade our people from actively and massively participating in the 2027 general election. Similarly, l earnestly appeal to Igbo people in the diaspora to make a point of using their telephones and all available social media platforms to reach out to their friends, relations, and beneficiaries in Nigeria to file out on election days to exercise their franchise in the interest of all of us.
God bless Ndigbo.

Chief Dr. Chekwas Okorie
(Ojeozi Ndigbo)
National Chairman
Igbo Agenda Dialogue