On September 8, this year, Plateau State, once renowned for serenity, was again violated, in what has now become an evil string of bloody sectarian clashes.
There was a report of two attacks in Miango district of Bassa Local Government area, which left 20 persons dead; 19 of them members of an extended family.
An account by the Chairman, Miango Development Association of the Irigwe Chiefdom in Bassa, Mr. David Chinge, said some attackers, suspected to be Fulani herdsmen, descended on Ncha village at around 12:45 am, at a time the locals were asleep, killing 19 members of a family. The attack also left about eight persons injured.
Shortly after, he said, two persons were felled by armed men, while on their way to Miango, and that the body of one of those killed was recovered, while the other was still missing.
Explaining the cause of the maniacal slaughter, a Police Commissioner, Mr. Peter Ogunyanwo, said the incident was suspected to have been carried out by Fulani herdsmen as a likely reprisal, sequel to the killing and beheading of a Fulani young man whose body was burnt before being buried in a stream, two weeks ago.
Ogunyanwo, however, said five persons had been arrested in connection with the beheading of the Fulani youth.
Following the incident, President Muhammadu Buhari directed the deployment of troops to the trouble spot, while mandating a thorough investigation of the callous killings. Same way, the state’s governor, Simon Lalong, undertook the ritual of brokering truce between the Fulani herdsmen and the native farmers.
Rather than beat about the bush through the setting up of a panel of enquiry after each blood-letting arising from a Fulani, farmers’ clash, wise counsel had long gone to the Federal Government to rein in the itinerant herdsmen by mandating cattle ranches for them in the states, to prevent this gale of encroachment, destruction and killings
But the President’s supposedly conciliatory endeavour in securing an end to the sectarian conflict may have backfired in the long run. Only Wednesday, last week, the troops deployed in Plateau to quell the crisis, codenamed ‘Operation Safe Haven’, came under serious allegation of complicity with the Fulani herdsmen, to eradicate the farmers.
This became so when 29 persons, including women and children, were killed by the herdsmen in a classroom where the soldiers had asked them to gather for protective cover. Relations of those felled in the mass killing recalled that a boy sighted a gun-totting Fulani herdsman, “hiding in the bush and giving signs to the soldiers.” Following the alleged play of Judas, the soldiers allegedly retreated, exposing those under their protection to sure death.
But defending the military, the spokesman of Operation Safe Haven, Captain Umar Adams, denied the allegation that the troops played Judas, saying the soldiers were merely overwhelmed by the numerical strength of the attacking Fulani herdsmen.
Sadly, however, Plateau, which had, up to the first decade of this century, been noted for its hue of mutual tolerance and calm, all ennobled by its clement weather, is no longer the Plateau of the good old days. It has now been held captive in the hay of ethno-religious despoliation of alarming frequency. This sorry drift is always linked to hostilities between Fulani herdsmen and the natives, principally the farmers.
Remarkably, frequent clashes between Fulani herdsmen and their host communities are not peculiar to Plateau State, as many people from states like Kaduna, Benue, Nasarawa and others in the South-East, South-South and South-West had shouted themselves hoarse, trying to seek the Federal Government’s intervention in the often belligerent peregrination of the usually armed shepherds.
But in the case of Plateau, its preponderance is no more than a national shame and a clear indication of vested interests in some high places; an indulgence that stabs patriotism, fairness and justice in the back.
Rather than beat about the bush through the setting up of a panel of enquiry after each blood-letting arising from a Fulani, farmers’ clash, wise counsel had long gone to the Federal Government to rein in the itinerant herdsmen by mandating cattle ranches for them in the states, to prevent this gale of encroachment, destruction and killings.
We similarly subscribe to government’s interaction with the parent body for the herdsmen, the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, helping it to compute its membership data for effective control and guidance, nationwide. This approach should not be limited to the cattle breeders association alone, but to all native professional groups, in the overall interest of internal security.
Again, there should be unrelenting public awareness campaigns through the mass media, to highlight the unpleasant consequence of acts like rumour mongering, jungle justice and mob attack.
A nation bogged down by many socio-political and ethnic crises, like in the Nigerian case, should do everything possible to put any fresh infraction at bay.
