The Plateau State government is at it again! Rhetorics, excuses, excuses, and more excuses.
None othan than the state’s chief executive officer laments the government’s inability to protect its citizenry from a vengeful and blood-thirsty Fulani militia, through a co-ordinated local and lawful method, devoid of the alleged, heavily compromised Federal security infrastructure.
The words of State governor, Barrister Caleb Mutfwang on Channels Television on Tuesday night: “We must stop this carnage. Security agents cannot continue with this reactionary strategy but be proactive. As I am talking to you today, in Barkin-Ladi Local Government, schools have been occupied by these terrorists for some years now.
“Not less than 64 communities have been displaced and the lands have been taken over by these marauding terrorists.
“I can tell you that these schools that are being occupied didn’t start now. Some of the schools have been occupied for the last three to five years. Children in those schools have had to relocate, and primary healthcare centres have been abandoned.”
He promised, as has been done by his predecessors for years, to approach the President to give clear instructions to security agents to protect the people on the Plateau against their land-grabbing attackers.
“We need to summon the political will to give instructions to security agencies to protect the territorial integrity of Nigeria and even the internal integrity of our land boundaries.
“People who want land on the Plateau are free to approach the communities, negotiate, and settle in those communities.
“I don’t think people will refuse but, where they resort to violence to take over those lands, you will be sure that this is a time bomb because it will reach a time when people will react, and we are going to have a large-scale conflict. I pray we don’t get to that point.
“Part of the problem we have is that, so far, there have been no arrests, no prosecution, and as far as we do not confront this issue headlong, some people feel their attackers are being protected.
“Under the last regime, the feeling of the people in Plateau State, particularly the victims of these terrorist attacks, is that it looks as if the terrorists were given official government backing to be able to terrorize them because little or nothing was done to repel these attacks.”
But there are Plateau indigenes who do not sympathise with Mutfwang, insisting he is a lawyer who can, “through the instrumentality of the law do what was done in Ondo State with Amotekun with a bottoms-up security apparatus from the community to ward to Local Government Area to State capital level.”
On Christmas eve 115 citizens were killed, scores viciously wounded, 15 communities razed in Bokkos and Barkin Ladi local government areas.
Doing what it knows best to do since overwhelmed by the decades-old conflict, the Police Command in Plateau State confirmed by Boxing Day that at least 96 persons were killed by gunmen that attacked the 15 communities.
The gunmen also destroyed 221 houses, eight vehicles and 27 motorcycles.
The Police Public Relations Officer for the Plateau Command, DSP Alfred Alabo, said that the gunmen attacked 15 villages in Bokkos and Barkin-Ladi Local Government Areas simultaneously on Sunday, December 24, 2023 at about 10 pm leaving behind devastation.
He said that findings from the assessment of the incident in Bokkos revealed that the 12 villages were attacked during which more than 79 persons killed and 221 houses set ablaze.
In his words; “Communities attacked in Bokkos Local Government Area include, Ndun, Ngyong, Murfet, Makundary, Tamiso, Chiang, Tahore, Gawarba, Dares, Meyenga, Darwat and Butura Kampani”.
In Barkin-Ladi Local Government Area, communities attacked are NTV, Hurum and Darawat.
The Police spokesman added that that investigation and monitoring were ongoing, adding that further development would be communicated to the public in due course.
● Editor’s Note We are sorry we cannot reproduce disturbing photos and videos of the carnage.