By NewsBits
The Coalition of Nigerian Youth Leaders (CONYL) and Congress of Civil Societies, coalitions of NGOs, have issued a 24-hour ultimatum to Federal Government and Bauchi State Government to unconditionally release Mrs Rhoda Ya’u Jatau.
NewsBits recalls that Rhoda Jatau was unlawfully incarcerated for demanding justice for Deborah Samuel, the 200-level student of Shehu Shagari College of Education, Sokoto, who was brutally murdered after advising against sending religious materials on a WhatsApp page. That was during the immediate past government of President Muhammadu Buhari.
The ultimatum is contained in a statement issued in Enugu on Friday by the President-General of CONYL, Comrade Goodluck Ibem and the Coordinator of Congress of Civil Societies, Comrade Damian Ogbuike. It amounts to treason against the Nigerian State and Nigerian Constitution for anyone under whatever guise to unlawfully detain Rhoda a Christian with a Sharia law, according to the groups.
It said: “This is a travesty of the Law and Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. When has it become an offense to demand for justice to be done to another follow Nigerian?
“Those who unlawfully detained Rhoda are now telling the world that it is lawful for citizens to take laws into their own hands by killing their follow human beings.
“We demand for the immediate and unconditionally release of Rhoda Jatau, a mother of five children, who was unlawfully imprisoned since May 22, 2022, in Bauchi State for allegedly sharing a video condemning the lynching of a student, Deborah Samuel Yakubu, in Sokoto State.”
The statement noted that it was the height of lawlessness, gross abuse of power and gross insensitivity for the Bauchi State authorities to hold Rhoda for 18 months in prison.
“It is an infringement on her fundamental human rights as enshrined in our Constitution and the United Nations charter on human rights. We demand for the arrest and prosecution of those who unlawfully detained Rhoda. Her unlawful incarceration is a pure case of treason and should be treated as such,” it said.
