Despite Buhari’s visit, fresh killings disrupt Plateau peace roadmap

President Muhammadu Buhari’s recent visit to Plateau State was well heralded and welcomed in many quarters with the attendant expectation of goodwill and enhanced peace, yet fresh killings littered the euphoria.   The excitement over the presidential visit was mainly because the state had been engulfed in deadly clashes between Fulanis and members of some […]

President Muhammadu Buhari’s recent visit to Plateau State was well heralded and welcomed in many quarters with the attendant expectation of goodwill and enhanced peace, yet fresh killings littered the euphoria.

 

The excitement over the presidential visit was mainly because the state had been engulfed in deadly clashes between Fulanis and members of some communities, particularly in Bokkos and Bassa Local Government Areas of the state in what is now widely referred to as farmers-herders clashes or indigene-settler clashes.

Following the escalation of hostilities, the security outfit, OPSH on January 29, 2018 organized a peace/mediation meeting between the Fulanis and communities in Bokkos Local Government Area on one hand and the Fulanis and Irigwe communities of Miango in Bassa LGA on the other hand.

The OPSH Commander, Major General Anthony Atolagbe, said they would do all they could to boost peace in the state and appealed to all the parties to bear their minds on their grievances, and forgive each other. The Director General of Plateau State Peace Building Agency, Joseph Lengmang, said people at the grassroots must be willing to accept to live in peace because their decision would ensure a more sustainable peace than that of the security agencies which could only be for a short period.

The state chapter of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) in a statement said for peace to reign between the Fulani people and the Irigwe community in Miango District of Bassa LGA, mutual trust and respect must be developed as well as work on long term commitments that underly the cause of the conflicts.

The statement which was signed by its Chairman, Muhammad Nuru Abdullahi and the Secretary, Abdullahi Ardo, said peace building was not something that could be achieved at a single event or by signing a peace accord alone, but should be an ongoing process of developing relationships of mutual understanding.

The statement said among the challenges faced by the Fulani community in Irigwe which needed to be addressed was to be allowed to graze freely, secret killing of their people and cattle and lack of access to water points. He also said their farmlands initially bought from the Irigwe people had been confiscated and most stock routes had been blocked.

Fracas after peace parley

All the parties then left the peace parley shaking hands, hugging and vowing to instruct their youths/wards to sheath their swords and give peace a chance.

But this was not to be, as barely a week after the peace parley, a deadly conflict broke out in Farindong-Hai (Josho) in Daffo District in Bokkos LGA. The two ethnic groups there are Fulani and Ron (Challa). The conflict was as a result of a dispute over a block molding site. The clash left many dead and houses, property and food items were burnt. Hundreds were also displaced and were kept at a camp in COCIN RCC headquarters in Daffo, while two people are yet to be accounted for.

A quick peace building meetings/ sessions was then organized between both parties to resolve the matter. The District Head of Daffo, Daura Bitrus Maren, said at the meeting that he was optimistic that it would yield results and boost the confidence of the people to return to their homes. He noted that they had also fashioned out how those rendered homeless could get assistance and return home. Other clashes took  place in Bokkos and Bassa as well, and lingered on.

Buhari comes to town

Then came the visit of President Muhammadu Buhari to the state on Thursday, March 8, 2018,  with expectations that it would have some meaningful impact and unveil a blueprint to enhance peace in the state.

The president spoke on the need for peaceful coexistence on the Plateau and launched the state’s roadmap to peace, a five-year strategic peace plan. Buhari performed the launch at the Little Rayfield Government House in Jos, after he was received by a large crowd on his arrival. “I have been monitoring activities of the Plateau State Peace Building Agency. I am indeed quite impressed with the gains and successes recorded in the area of conflict management and peace building which has returned the state to the path of relative peace. I have noted how the government has improved infrastructure, how it has been up to date in the payment of workers’ salaries and pensions and above all how it has restored peace in the state,” he said.

 Governor Simon Bako Lalong in his remarks, appealed to Buhari to assist the state in catering for the thousands of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from the various clashes as well as those from neighbouring states taking refuge in the state. According to the governor, the state has received many IDPs from Adamawa,  Benue, Borno, Kaduna and Yobe states without the required support from the federal government.

Pogrom despite Buhari’s visit

Regardless of the president’s visit and the peace roadmap, attacks and clashes still persisted. the very day the president arrived the state and unveiled the peace plan,  there were attacks on communities in Daffo district of Bokkos by suspected herdsmen where about 30 people were killed, including women and children. About 200 houses were burnt and 5,000 people were displaced and scattered across three IDP camps in Bokkos. The communities attacked included Nghagubund, Morok, Ganda, Httom-Werrem, Fubok 1 & 2 and Fangha.

A source from Daffo told our reporter that several persons were missing after the attack and some of the corpses were yet to be recovered from the bush. The source said they almost got caught up in the crisis when they made an attempt to rescue one Manja Audu from Ganda. Audu is currently receiving treatment at the Bima Orthopedic Hospital in Jos. 

According to the source, one of the effective ways of checking the clashes is for security operatives to ‘lock down’ any community where crisis erupts and search every home to recover weapons and make arrests as necessary.

However, there was no mention of the attack during the town hall meeting with the president as all attention was directed at other things and other agenda of the visit. Nonetheless, a former governor and senator representing Plateau Central Senatorial District, Joshua Dariye, after the president’s departure, condemned the  attacks, saying the unabated attacks despite the peace building meetings by the different stakeholders and the assurances to halt the violence was unfortunate.

“There is no justification for unleashing this violence considering the fact that the warring groups have lived together for a very long time. However, dialogue remains the only solution to the lingering crisis in Bokkos and other parts of Plateau State where herders and local farmers are having misunderstandings. Resorting to taking up arms would not bring solution to the problem as two wrongs cannot make a right,” he said.

Dariye called on security agencies in the state  to fish out the perpetrators and bring them to book, saying innocent people should not continue to live at the mercy of heartless attackers .

He appealed to victims of the attacks in Bokkos, which is also his local government area, to be patient as lasting solutions are being sought.

LGA chairman sacked

Following the attack as well as the other ones on residents of Bokkos, Governor Lalong sacked Mr Simon Angyol, the Management Committee Chairman of the LGA.

Angyol was criticized by people from and outside the local government for not doing enough to boost the long standing relationship between Bokkos indigenes and Fulanis which has deteriorated in recent times, leading to deadly clashes.

A source from Bokkos urged his successor to do everything within his powers to restore peace between Bokkos people and Fulanis because they have lived in peace for many centuries and inter-marry.

He called on Governor Lalong to apply this measure (of sacking of any local government chairman) in other local government areas.

Flashpoint shifts to Miango

After the visit of the president, the flash point became Miango District of Bassa LGA. Last Monday night, about 21 people were confirmed killed and two injured, following an attack on Zir-Shi Maiyanga village near Dundu in Kwall District of Bassa Local Government Area. The attack occurred a few hours before a scheduled mass burial of victims of last week’s killing in some villages of the same district. The attack took place between 10pm and 11pm by gunmen locals claimed were Fulani herdsmen.

OPSH Media and Information Officer, Major Adam Umar, said due to the difficult terrain, personnel of the taskforce arrived the village after the attackers had fled but seven corpses were immediately recovered while another person died in hospital. He also said 13 additional corpses were recovered the following morning, taking the number of the dead to 21.

He stressed that despite series of dialogues, sometimes three times a week at the sector or local level and four times a month at the headquarters between the Fulani and Irigwe from Miango district, the youths still went ahead to launch attacks mostly on reprisals.

Women protest in black

After the Miango attacks, over 1,000 women from the district dressed in black stormed the old Jos University Teaching Hospital (JUTH) when their people came to collect the corpses of those killed in the first attack for mass burial. The women carried different placards with different inscriptions, wailing.

Later, the women started shouting at the soldiers, saying they didn’t need them around because they could not protect them and stop their people being killed. The soldiers along with their officers then left the hospital.

At the hospital, the Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Hon. Peter Azi, called on the federal government to as a matter of urgency deploy effective measures to halt the killings.

The speaker who was dressed in black in solidarity with the hundreds of mourners at the hospital said he was assured that the killings would soon be brought to an end.

“The perpetrators of this dastardly act must not go unpunished. They must be arrested and brought to book to serve as deterrent to others. The government has so many effective techniques they can apply in tackling the issue and in tracking all perpetrators of evil, and besides, nobody is above the law. I believe than there would soon be an end to all of these killings by the grace of God. It is truly unfortunate that these are happening. My advice to the victims of these attacks is that they should remain calm,” he said.

In his remarks, the member representing Pengana Constituency in Bassa LGA, Ezekiel Afon, said enough of all the killings perpetuated in the country in the name of farmers-herders clashes and the government must be responsive and rise to the occasion.

If the government, he said, at this juncture can put aside every other engagement and concentrate on the farmers-herders clashes in order to halt the killings, it would be a great achievement on their part because people are being killed daily, not only in Plateau State but in the nation as a whole.

The National President of Irigwe Development Association, Sunday Abdu, said they had several times appealed for peace and attended several peace initiatives/meetings with the Fulanis, but the killings continued unabated.

He said they had also pointed out the hideouts of the people perpetuating the killings to security operatives, including apprehending some of them and handing over to the security forces, but that nothing had been done or heard of those apprehended and handed over.

More clashes after burial of 21

A few hours after the mass burial of those killed and the recovery of the 21 bodies, violence again broke out between youths from Irigwe and Fulani communities around Rafiki area of Miango district, in what appeared to be an escalation of the attack after the killing of the 21. Two members of the OPSH were confirmed killed and two others were injured in the clash.

In an attempt to ensure normalcy, a dusk to dawn curfew was declared in Bassa. The Secretary to the State Government, Rufus Bature, in a statement said Governor Lalong approved a curfew after due consultations with security agencies.

The OPSH Media and Information Officer, Major Umar, confirmed the casualty figure on the multi-security taskforce, adding that the security agents had been caught in the cross fire between the two parties while trying to end the clash.

Major Umar said many houses were also set ablaze in the clash which occurred around 6am on Wednesday and that the total number of the dead was yet to be compiled. He however said eight people from both sides were arrested.

“The clash followed the anger on the killing of 21 people on Monday. It happened around the Rafiki area but extended to some villages in Miango. We are however now dominating the area as more of our men have been deployed to the communities. Right now we are enforcing compliance with the dusk to dawn curfew to ensure that all hostilities are halted and normalcy is returned,” he said.

MACBAN debunks link to killings

Reacting to the accusation of being behind the attacks in Bokkos and Bassa during and after the visit of the president, Plateau State MACBAN chairman,  Muhammad Nuru Abdullahi, said Fulanis were the victims of the attacks in both Bokkos and Bassa, and not the other way round.

He said the crisis in Daffo area of Bokkos on the day the president came was as a result of an armed robbery attack which some members of Daffo community blamed on Fulanis and began attacking them, and one of the first victims of the attack was one Ardo Yakubu Jaoro whose house was burnt.

He noted however that the genesis of the crisis in Daffo district of Bokkos was the dispute at the block molding site between a Fulani boy and a Challa boy which escalated and resulted to loss of lives and property.

In the case of Miango, he said tension had been brewing since on Monday when some Irigwe militias attacked herdsmen and killed three of them and 38 of their cows.

That incident, he said, was not managed properly by both the Irigwes and the Fulanis and then degenerated, leading to loss of more lives and property.

Security agents arrive too late

Abdullahi accused security operatives of not being proactive and prompt, saying most of their actions always come late when gross damages had already been done and many lives had been lost.

He said Fulanis had been trying their best to work out an amicable solution with Miango people and would keep trying until they succeed and peace is restored.

He however stressed that the whole issue was politically motivated ahead of the 2019 general elections in order to discredit the APC led federal government as well as the state government which has been pursuing peace and unity.