RIGHTS GROUP CONDEMNS MANHUNT FOR ACTIVIST

The anti-corruption group raised the alarm in a press release issued following the recent invasion of the private home of Chief Sandra Duru, a noted rights activist and one of the financiers of CACOL.

The Media for Ethnic Equality, MEE, a media advocacy group, had earlier hinted that the Lagos home of Chief (Dr) Sandra Duru was broken into and ransacked by people suspected to be security agents over the weekend.

According to the Executive Director of MEE, Gboyega Adeoye, the invasion of the Lagos residence of Chief Duru was suspect “because with benefit of hindesight, every traces left are pointers to the fact that the perpetrators of the act were either after the life of the activist or carrying out a more hidden sinister assignment.”

Reacting, CACOL stated that the recent attack on Chief Duru, who luckily was not at home at the time of the invasion, was “callous, mean and a sad remembrance of the dark days of evil regimes.” CACOL is an aggregate of human rights, community based, and civil society organisations with an anti-corruption agenda across Nigeria.

The group is noted for using any available means to cause relevant authorities to probe and bring to book all corrupt leaders both in public and private institutions, just as it strves to protect interest of persons or groups found to be oppressed by potential victims of corrupt practices or processes of manipulation.

Speaking on the issue, National Chairman of CACOL, Debo Adeniran, bemoans the renewed attempt on the life of Mrs Duru and therefore called on the Federal Government to call its security apparatus to order as a way of lending seriousness to its professed anti-corruption stance.

Chief Duru’s ordeal started since 2008 following her stepping on some big toes in government as a top official of the Standard Organisation of Nigeria, SON, under the leadership of Dr John Ndanusa Akanya, as the Director General.

The notable activist, had used her office to expose some top shots in the then government in several ways, a development which set her against government and subsequently subjected her to series of escaped organised killings, trumped up charges and media attacks.

As a result of the orchestrated clampdowns, Chief Duru, a mother of three, had been severally arrested and detained by state security apparatus before she managed to travel out of the country.

Reacting further to the recent invasion of her home, CACOL expressed worry that the manhunt for the activist could still continue, even now that Nigerians believed they have voted for change, having successfully voted out the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP led government which ruled from 1999 to 2015.

“It is so sad that Nigeria is still walking in a vicious circle as far as human rights and rights to human dignity are concerned. The continued manhunt for the life of Comrade Duru, a renowned activist and dogged fighter on the side of the oppressed masses of this country, is regrettable and outrightly condemnable. We say enough of this persistent clampdown; we are saying this consistent and seemingly unabating threat to her life should stop.

“We call on President Mohammadu Buhari to call the perpetrators of this heinous act to order. We demand a statement from the Federal Government that this act of brigandage by these blod seeking monsters should stop.

“Comrade Duru has suffered enough. She has been arrested, detained, humiliated severally; her businesses have been paralysed. We know all these are handiworks of those who thought she had committed an unforgivable offence by exposing their deeds when she was serving at the SON. She needs protection; and this we have resolved she get,” CACOL stressed.