A coalition of over 60 non-governmental organizations led by the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, yesterday, threatened to drag Governor Mukhtar Ramalan Yero before the International Criminal Court of Justice, ICC, over alleged genocide in Southern Kaduna.

This was even as the National Human Rights Commission, NHRC, said it has commenced investigation into a petition alleging that the “systemic and premeditated attacks”, are aimed at “decimating and liquidating the Southern Kaduna People in order to take over their ancestral lands and natural resources”.

The petition which was lodged by an amalgamation of NGOs based in Southern Kaduna.

The group insisted that the state government had failed to take adequate steps to stop the killings, identify the attackers and bring them to book.

“It is on record that even in situations where the communities have captured the perpetrators red-handed, while in the act of terrorizing our communities and handed them over the security forces, none has been prosecuted in court to serve as a deterrence”, the petitioners added.

According to them, “The main characteristic of the on-going assaults on our communities is that they are carefully planned, organized and executed with heartless viciousness and on an incremental basis.

“Between 2011 and 2014, over a period of just four years, 39 such terrorist attacks have been launched against our hospitable, accommodating, peaceful and law abiding communities by terrorists. These planned, systematic and coordinated attacks have claimed the lives of over 4,000 innocent Southern Kaduna people, bona fide citizens of Nigeria.