Pressure on security agencies as fresh plateau attack claims three

The National Assembly yesterday turned the heat on the military in the aftermath of the Christmas Day coordinated attacks in Plateau State.

The Senate invited the Service Chiefs to come for discussion on how an end might be put to such massacres while the House of Representatives asked the police to immediately conduct a detailed investigation into the attacks with a view to identifying the perpetrators and bringing them to justice.

The immediate past governor of the state, Senator Simon Lalong said there was no merit in the excuse given by the Defence Headquarters on why soldiers could not immediately intervene to stop the invaders while another former governor of the state, Jonah Jang called for state police.

The House of Representatives urged an immediate investigation of the attacks by the police while the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, Dr.Matthew Kukah described the onslaught as a war against Nigeria.

They all spoke amid report of a fresh killing of three youths in the state by gunmen.

Summoned yesterday by the Senate are Chief of Army Staff, Lt-General Taoreed Lagbaja, Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Hassan Abubakar, National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, Director General of the Department of State Services, Magaji Bichi, Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun and Director General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Ahmed Rufai Abubakar.

This followed the adoption of a motion moved by Senator Diket Plang (APC – Plateau Central) on the floor.

The Senate said the invitation would enable the security chiefs brief it about what happened and how to prevent a re-occurrence.

Senator Plang in his lead debate on the motion lamented that the state which used to be hailed as home of peace has now been turned into a zone of violence mainly by cattle rustlers and illegal miners.

The Christmas Day attacks, he said, were well coordinated. He stated that the attack that claimed many lives on the eve of Christmas was well-coordinated.

The Senator insisted that most of the crises were caused by cattle rustlers and illegal miners.

Plang called for the use of drones and cameras to monitor the bandits troubling the state and locate their hideouts.

He asked for a minute silence in honor of those who lost their lives in the attacks.

The senator also urged the upper chamber to direct the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs to distribute relief materials to the affected victims.

Senator Abdul Ningi (PDP – Bauchi Central) who seconded the motion said there appeared to be no synergy among the security agencies hence the ability of marauders to strike at will.

He said his visit to the victims of the attacks at the University of Jos Teaching Hospital revealed that the gunmen did not even spare anyone during the invasion, including three month old babies who now carry gunshot wounds.

He urged the Senate to support Plateau State with appropriate funding for the welfare of displaced persons.

Senator Lalong (APC, Plateau South), expressed sadness over the attack.

“Those who are displaced in 2021 have not been returned to their homes because the land is devastated. A man who is displaced will always be an angry man. Let us call the military to order,” Lalong said.

In his remarks, the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio said that the country needed to increase its surveillance and intelligence gathering.

Akpabio therefore led the upper chamber to observe one minute silence in honor of those who lost their lives in the attacks.

Flush out perpetrators of Christmas eve attack in Plateau, Reps tell IGP, other security agencies

Apart from asking the police to investigate the Christmas Day attacks, the House of Representatives urged the Minister of Defense to initiate a coordinated Joint Security Operation in the attack prone local government areas and adjoining towns in Plateau, Bauchi, Gombe, Taraba and Nasarawa states to flush out the criminals and prevent them from escaping to other states.

It also asked the Chief of Air Staff to provide aerial surveillance and support to flush out criminal hideouts and camps.

The Department of State Services and Directorate of Military Intelligence were told to gather intelligence information on the influx, camping and operations of criminal groups within Bokkos, Barkin Ladi, Mangu and other volatile local government areas and adjoining towns and share same with other sister security agencies; and the Chief of Army Staff to establish military presence/bases in the said local government areas and other volatile areas of Plateau State.

Similarly, the House mandated its Committees on Police, Defense, Army and National Intelligence, to investigate the root causes of these incessant killings with a view to providing lasting solutions.

The House set up a delegation to visit the scenes of the killings in order to condole with families of victims and the government and people of Plateau State.

It directed the Committees on NEMA, Defense, Army, Air force, Police and Legislative Compliance to ensure compliance and furnish the House with a monthly report until the security situation is resolved.

It also directed the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) to immediately assess the extent of damage and displacement in attacked communities within the said local government areas with a view to providing necessary relief materials.

The House observed a one-minute silence in respect of the souls of all those killed in the recent attack.

These resolutions followed the adoption of a motion of urgent importance to condemn and investigate the attack moved by Hon Idris Wase (Wase, Plateau State).

Attacks attempt to disrupt peace in Plateau- lawmakers.

The Plateau State House of Assembly described the attacks as attempts to disrupt the relative peace in the state.

Speaker of the House, Gabriel Dawan, at a press conference in Jos described the attack on innocent citizens as barbaric, callous, unprovoked and heinous.

The House asked the affected communities to understand such activities as an attempt to destroy the relative peace in the state and said the people could not afford to be taken back to the inglorious dark days.

The State Legislature appealed to the security agencies in the state to stand firm and work proactively to discharge their primary mandate of maintaining peace and order.

Jang seeks establishment of state police

Jang, in a statement in Jos, said what was needed now was prompt action by the authorities to deal with the perpetrators of the mayhem, and not rhetoric.

He said one way out was the establishment of state police.

His words: “This dastardly act has once again tampered with the peace of our dear state as it was orchestrated by people who are hell-bent on ensuring that the ordinary Plateau man does not enjoy the serenity God through nature has bestowed on him.

“Choosing to murder harmless villagers in their homes as they prepared to celebrate the yuletide is the most horrendous wickedness that anyone could imagine. None of the hundreds of our people who lost their lives in the Christmas Eve attack by marauding terrorists envisaged that their lives would be cut short in such a gruesome manner.

“The killings on the plateau would seem to have gone on unabated as the non-arrest and prosecution of perpetrators have bolstered the serial killers to carry out more and more killings. Unfortunately, villagers in Bokkos, Barkin Ladi, Bassa, Riyom and Mangu LGAs have continued to bear the brunt of terrorists who seem to have sworn to dispossess them of their heritage at all costs.

“That these killers are out on a cleansing agenda and plan to take over the lands of the people they try to wipe out is no longer hidden. As painful as these killings are, equally hard and painstaking efforts must be made to put an end to them to restore Plateau to its known peaceful atmosphere which made it home to many people, even in decades past.

“While we agree with the President that the culprits must be apprehended and made to face prosecution, we must note that these directives have been issued repeatedly. Yet, neither arrests nor prosecutions have been made in the past. It is therefore pertinent that at this point, there is the need to attend to the call for State Police as part of measures for boosting security, ensuring early response in crises and confronting the challenges of insecurity headlong.

“A situation where state governors have no powers to immediately deploy personnel to quell attacks and confront marauding terrorists is worrisome. The killings are getting out of hand and the State Police option is viable for nipping these massacres in the bud. States should be given the power to create, train and equip their police to enable state governors to deal with peculiar security situations in their various states. More than ever, the time to heed the call for state policing is now.

“The National Assembly must take this call seriously and rise to the occasion, act in the interest of the Plateau People and consider the issue as a matter of urgent importance. While we commend the efforts of the Federal and Plateau State governments in responding to the recent attacks, we reckon that more can be done to stop the seeming non-stop attacks and needless loss of the lives of innocent villagers who are murdered while in their sleep or as they struggle on their farms to eke a living for themselves.

“There is more that can be done, the endless killings are unacceptable, and our people must be allowed to stay in their homes, and continue to cultivate their farmlands without any intimidation or fear of unprovoked attacks which leave them homeless or decapitated.

It’s war against Nigeria, says Kukah

In his own reaction, Dr.Kukah said the killers have no respect for the boundaries of religion, region or ethnicity and keep attacking Christians, Muslims, churches and mosques.

He said the killings were no longer acts by herders and farmers over grazing fields.

He asked the intelligence community to unmask the killers, where they live and what their goals are.

He tasked the military and security agencies to rise to the challenges at hand.

He said the culture of investigation as excuses must end.

He expressed regrets that the Northern part of the country, especially the Middle Belt, has turned into a killing field.

But he commended the Federal Government for its responses to tragedies.

He said: “We are gradually taking eerie solace in the fact that these killers do not respect the boundaries of religion, region or ethnicity. We seem to be consoled that they are destroying churches as well as mosques, killing Christians as well as Muslims.

“We seem to be lulled into a feeling of collective consolation and we all believe that we are all victims of an endless orgy of violence that has taken over our land.

“There is a method to this madness. The choice of location, communities, timings, the seeming hooded identities of the killers mask a fact: we may not know who they are, but someone wants something from the Middle Belt. Stretch your imagination from the emergence of the modern Nigerian state and connect the dots.

“Sadly, with time, Nigerians are gradually losing hope in the ability of their government to protect and secure them.

“While we religious leaders have continued to use our moral authority to encourage our people not to take the laws into their hands, we risk being swept away by the anger and frustration of our people. We even risk being seen as accomplices to an erring state.

“The Nigerian state itself risks becoming an undertaker in the eyes of its citizens. Our cups of sorrow are overflowing. We have cried enough tears.

“We may pretend that we are not at war, but truly, a war is being waged against the Nigerian state and its people. God forbid, but we could snap anytime, anywhere and for any reason.”

The Catholic Bishop said it was time to unmask the killers and their sponsors.

He added: “By the banks of the Niger River, on the hills of the Plateau, across the lush savannah of the Middle Belt, we have sat down and wept. We have questions crying for answers: Who are these killers? Where are they coming from? Who is sponsoring them? What are their grouses and against whom? What do they want? Whom do they want? Who are they working for? When will it all end? Why are they invincible and invisible? Who is offering them cover? Are we condemned to live with this and hand this broken nation to our children? Should we all just become inoculated and sedated to make all this bearable? Who will supply the opium to dull our pain? Are we sleep-walking to self-destruction?

“Why has the north become the birthplace of so much bloodletting? Why have these killings been seen as tools of negotiation with the Nigerian state by the protectors of the north? Why has our north become the incubator of all that is destructive? Boko Haram, banditry and shades of terrorism all live in our region. Why is this so?

“These killers are not ordinary murderers. They are killers for a purpose. It is the task of the intelligence community to tell us who they are, where they live and what their goals are.

“These killers are professionals and are they Nigerians or they have just Nigerian sponsors? Their sponsors are among us. They must be in high places. They are now embedded in the architecture of state. President Tinubu must know that the legitimacy of his government hangs on resolving this and giving us our country back.”

Kukah asked the military and all security agencies to rise to the challenge of insecurity in the country,

He said the war against banditry, terrorism and killings must be won.

He, however, said Nigerians were tired of excuses or the culture of investigation.

Plateau killings aimed at ethnic cleansing – ECWA President

The President of Evangelical Church Winning All Worldwide (ECWA) and Head of Denominational Church Leaders on the Plateau, Dr. Stephen Panya, said the church was pained that the attacks were carried out against innocent and harmless Christians who were climaxing preparations to celebrate Christmas. Unfortunately, their joy was turned into pains, weeping and sorrow.

He said: “It is very clear that some people have vowed never to allow peace reign on the Plateau.

“If not for reasons of genocide and ethnic cleansing, what could be the reason for such unprovoked, premeditated, simultaneous and well-coordinated attacks on Christmas eve against communities that are predominantly Christians? This speaks volume of the evil intentions of the attackers and their sponsors.

“How possible is it for such massive and well-coordinated attacks to take place across two local government areas without any iota of intelligence? Why did security agencies fail to respond swiftly despite several distress calls? Why the choice of Christmas eve for the attacks despite assurances from security agencies to provide adequate security during the yuletide?

Three killed in fresh Plateau attack

Gunmen were said to have again killed three youths in a fresh attack which occurred in Bokkos Local Government Area of the state on Friday.

The victims, suspected to be herders, were said to have gone to Lut, one of the communities attacked on December 25,to pick up some stranded relatives ,only to be shot by gunmen.

Our soldiers didn’t maltreat women in Plateau, says DHQ

The Defence Headquarters (DHQ) said yesterday that soldiers on operations in Plateau State never maltreated any women, contrary to what was being circulated in social media.

It said rather, the soldiers have been conducting the operations professionally according to the laid down laws and rules.

The Acting Director Defence Information, Brig.-Gen. Tukur Gusau in a statement faulted a video trending on social media.

He said the video in question “actually originated from an incident that took place in Sambisa Forest in 2021, involving the spouses of Boko Haram members during the capture of strongholds of the Boko Haram insurgents and not in Plateau State as falsely claimed.”