For some inexplicable reasons, Plateau State has continued to be in the news for the wrong reasons. Plateau State that used to be land of splendour, beauty and tourism is now one huge killing field. The regularity and frequency of the incidents mean that these are not just by mere happenstance but a calculated and premeditated ethnic cleansing and genocide.
Until these militias and terrorists are identified and brought to justice, and their sponsors and sympathisers exposed, everything we do would amount to merely scratching the surface.
Last Monday’s gunmen attack on Zike and Kimakpa communities in Plateau State’s Bassa Local Government Area which claimed a reported 51 lives, is to say the least, a slap on the faces of the security operatives and every law-abiding citizen.
How can these marauders just visit such carnage on a community when the people were sleeping at night and then disappear into thin air? To also think that these communities are within proximity to the 3 Division Headquarters of the Nigerian Army, even makes these more difficult to comprehend. The audacity to carry out such an attack without fear given that these communities are within shouting distance from the barracks, simply means that what we have in our hands is a war and not a mere one-off communal skirmish.
Even more worrisome is the fact this was not a sudden or unpredictable tragedy. Community members, we are told, raised the alarms ahead of the attack. They warned of threats. They called for help. But once again, they were ignored. The attackers stormed Zike around midnight and operated for nearly two hours – killing, burning and destroying.
Good enough, President Bola Tinubu has promised to arrest this horrendous cycle of bloodshed and killings.
President Tinubu, while condemning the killings urged the state’s leadership to find a lasting solution to persistent communal conflicts.
“We cannot allow this devastation and the tit-for-tat attacks to continue. Enough is enough,” Tinubu said in a statement signed Monday by his Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga.
The statement is titled, ‘President Tinubu condemns latest attack in Plateau, charges Governor Mutfwang to resolve underlying communal issues.’
Last week’s attack is coming less than two weeks after armed men also struck multiple villages in the Bokkos area of the state, killing 52 people.
However, what one is not convenient with is the shift of responsibility by the president to the state government. Also, his description of these attacks as communal squabbles or disputes, to me, is to underestimate the gravity and seriousness of these frequent killings.
The natural question to ask is who are the perpetrators and where are they from? How did the Presidency arrive at that conclusion?
This disposition of President Tinubu is not different from that of former President Muhammadu Buhari, who kept dismissing those unprovoked attacks as mere communal clashes. So, at the end he performed pathetically below par at securing the lives and property of the people.
In fact, Buhari’s sympathy for these killers were all too glaring for all to see. First, he refused to accept that Fulani brothers were on the rampage and pretended as though it were mere farmers-herders clashes. He also refused to acknowledge that these terrorists or bandits were on a mission to overrun their hosts and take over their ancestral lands.
As fluttering commander-in-chief of the armed forces, he could not even have arrested the ugly trend, rather he was busy blaming the indigenous people of not being good hosts.
As commander in chief, he told a bewildered people how he ordered his IGP To relocate to Benue to arrest the killings there but his order was no heeded. Yet, he did nothing and the killing went on unabated. The only recorded time when the presidency came alive and talked tough was whenever eye witnesses accused killer herders of kidnapping and killings. Rather than tackling the problem dispassionately, they complained of ethnic profiling.
It’s rather unfortunate too that President Tinubu is toeing that line. To dismiss these as communal skirmishes is to miss the point.
First, the president seem to be shirking his responsibilities because top on his priorities now should be hunting these killers. They are not ghosts and cannot have disappeared without a trace. We must know who they are.
And as we argued recently, all lives must matter. We cannot continue to carry on as though some lives are more valuable than others. People must be brought to justice for any life taken whether under religious guise or ethnic cleansing. Whenever or wherever any one is killed extra-judicially such life must be accounted for.
Shifting the responsibility to the state governor is attempting to be politically correct like former President Buhari. Over 100 lives cannot within few weeks be wasted and we will be merely urging “the state’s leadership to find a lasting solution to persistent communal conflicts.” The statement also quoted the president to have said, “We cannot allow this devastation and the tit-for-tat attacks to continue. Enough is enough.”
These are typical lines from Buhari’s playbook. Nothing will change. We have seen all of these and they are all too familiar. In boxing it’s called shadowboxing: A form of solo exercise, involving throwing punches at the air, and not at an opponent. Just punching the air.
This approach cannot deter anyone, Mr. President. Murderers armed with sophisticated weapons can only be matched arms for arms, grit for grit. They can be routed and decisively dealt with to serve as deterrent to others.
Finally, the buck of securing the nation rests squarely with you and stops on your desk, Mr. President. State governors are not officially equipped to stop AK 47-totting marauders.
Those who fund these killers are not ghosts Mr. President, talking tough and not acting tough would prolong these spate of wanton attacks and killings. Please save Nigerians from these killers that even Buhari’s government once admitted are coming from outside of our country.
Mr. President, it was because of Buhari’s choice to remain aloof while Nigeria burned that he is considered a failure today, would you also like to be dismissed as another failure when you leave office?
