Bloodier Plateau, Dodgier Interventions

IN THE ARENA

The Saturday August 14 senseless massacre of ‘travelling pilgrims’ along Rukuba road, off Gada-biyu, in Jos North Local Government Area of Plateau State, again draws attention to a fundamentally flawed security architecture, Louis Achi writes

It is conceptually impossible that Plateau State should be an island of security sanity in a sea of security chaos which Nigeria currently represents. Should this scenario then excuse or validate the intensifying bloodshed on what once represented the nation’s Middle Belt paradise? Certainly not.

On Saturday, August 14, 2021, 22 travellers coming from a religious event in Bauchi State, who passed along Rukuba road axis of Jos, the Plateau State capital, were killed with 17 others injured. The Plateau State Police Command confirmed the figures. Initial conjectures held that the victims were religious pilgrims from Ondo and Ekiti states returning from Bauch in a convoy of buses.

An obviously helpless Governor Simon Lalong of Plateau State swiftly imposed a 24-hour curfew on Jos North, Jos South and Bassa local government areas, following the attack in these areas. The action, according to the governor, was to forestall further security threats.

But despite the dusk-to-dawn curfew imposed on the area, five persons have been killed in what appeared to be a reprisal attack on a village at Bassa Local Government Area of the state by suspected herdsmen.

The Secretary General of Irigwe Development Association, Mr. Danjuma Auta, said in a statement that Chando-Zrrechi (Tafi-Gana village) was attacked by “Fulani herdsmen.”

But in a swift response, the chairman of Miyeti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, (MACBAN) Plateau State Chapter, Mr. Nura Abdullahi, denied the allegation, saying it was false.

On his part, President Muhammadu Buhari, who directed the security agencies to fish out the perpetrators of the gruesome murder and bring them to justice, noted that the state was one of the states affected by herder-farmer clashes.

“However, to be clear, this is not an agriculturalist-on-pastoralist confrontation – but rather a direct, brazen and wickedly motivated attack on members of a community exercising their rights to travel freely and to follow the faith of their choosing. With the evident preparedness of their attackers, it is clear this was a well-conceived and pre-arranged assault on a known target, location and religious persuasion of the travellers; not an opportunistic ambush,” he further stated.

The presidency also commended the efforts by the governors of Plateau, Bauchi, and Ondo states; the Sultan of Sokoto, His Eminence Sa’ad Abubakar III; and Sheikh Dahiru Bauchi as well as a number of notable Christian and Muslim leaders as they intensified efforts to calm down the situation.

The bloody incident of Saturday, August 14, spawns several legitimate posers. Who is responsible for the attack on travelling pilgrims? What are the consequences in law for such inhuman impunity? Are such consequences often non-selectively enforced? Do non-state actors receive clandestine support of the state as being increasingly alleged? Is there a larger agenda underlying the bloody campaigns ravaging the North-central region? What is the use or place of centralised policing architecture in a modern federal state? Is the current justice system up to speed?

In the immediate aftermath of the killings, the Irigwe youths were quickly fingered by the police. Is the police position backed by thorough investigation or convenient assumption?

From checks, Irigwe communities in Plateau State before now have come under unceasing assaults by killers over the past months. The fingers here point at Fulani herdsmen – rightly or wrongly. More importantly, security responses to these attacks have been unfortunately questionable.

It has been alleged that despite months of attacks on Irigwe communities, the police have never issued a statement or identified those behind the attacks.

But the police were quick to accuse the Irigwes of carrying out the attacks on the Muslim travellers.

This obviously generates deep distrust.

More, the latest bloody Jos killing happened on a day the Irigwe community was engaged in burying their dead, killed in the now familiar violence. Of course, this does not excuse lawlessness and impunity, assuming they were involved. That the security forces could not proactively scale-up security along Rukuba area leading to Miango, a potential flash-point on that day remains puzzling.

Looking at the big picture, the unwillingness or incapacity of the nation’s security forces to decisively cage insecurity is clearly responsible for this recurring deaths and destruction – both in the North-central region and across Nigeria.

It could be recalled that a week before the massacre of the pilgrims, the paramount ruler of the Irigwe ethnic nationality in Plateau State, His Royal Highness, the Bra Ngwe Irigwe, Rt Rev Ronku Aka, had lamented the tragedy that befell his people in the Bassa Local Government Area, following the recent invasion of their communities by gunmen suspected to be herdsmen.

The traditional ruler said the destruction that took place in his kingdom had further exposed the handicap of the governors and the council chairmen as chief security officers in their respective areas of jurisdiction in the country.

His words: “I don’t blame the local government chairman in Bassa or the governor of the state over the calamity that has befallen my people. At peace meetings, the governor will give order but the security men will go and do a different thing.

“During the recent attacks in my communities, the soldiers and other security operatives were around. As the invaders were carrying out the attacks in Jebu Miango and advancing to other communities we expected them to confront the invaders and stop the destruction going on but that did not happen.

“When I enquired what was happening, some soldiers cried to me that they did not receive the order to repel the attackers of the communities. Some of them who expressed frustration over the situation wondered the essence of holding guns, which they could not use and left the scene while the attackers continued with their destruction in the communities.”

Indeed, the poor response of the security forces to attacks on a specific party in the crisis has increasingly fuelled allegations of official endorsement of the attacks.

As Plateau State gets bloodier and the so-called interventions get even dodgier, who bells the cat?