Seventh-day Adventist Condemns Plateau Attack

*Urges  govt to step up efforts, fish out perpetrators

*Middle Belt Forum claims gunmen sent another letter of planned attacks

*House minority caucus alleges collusion, conspiracy in recent carnage   

Chuks Okocha, Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja and Segun Awofadeji in Bauchi

Seventh-day Adventist Church, Northeast Nigeria Conference, has condemned the recent attacks on the people of Bokkos, Barkin Ladi and Mangu local government areas of Plateau State by a group it described as “blood-thirsty” gunmen on the eve of Christmas.
The church lamented that the lives of many women, children, and the aged were lost, while property worth billions of naira were destroyed. It urged the government to step up efforts to fish out the perpetrators.
Meanwhile, the Middle Belt Forum (NBF) said the insurgents had sent another letter of impending attack to a community in the Plateau State.
The alleged letter of fresh attack came as the Minority Caucus of the House of Representatives said there was an act of collusion and conspiracy in the bloodletting going on in Plateau State.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church stated its position in Bauchi, in a press release by Pastor Joshua Ezra Mallum, President, Northeast Nigeria Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
The release said, “The Seventh-day Adventist Church is deeply disturbed by the recent rounds of gruesome attacks and is hereby expressing her stern position of disapproval and outright condemnation; most especially as the recurrence of such over the past few years hints at a well-calculated orchestration aimed at achieving an evil agenda of decimation for obvious reasons.

“It is on this note that the North East Nigeria Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church issues this press release to express the church’s utter dismay, shock and sorrow, noting that the acts were as senseless and barbaric, just as they were unjustifiable.
“The church also observes with chagrin that despite repeated calls from well-meaning groups and individuals on the government to set up a machinery for tackling the security challenges in Plateau State and across the federation, repeated manhunts and genocidal invasions of territories have become the order of the day, sometimes happening for long hours within the proximities of security outfits and in manners that overwhelm the inhabitants of the besieged communities.”

The church said what was “more worrisome is that these recent attacks were perpetrated in broad daylight, unlike the previous ones that were achieved under the cover of the night dark.
“It becomes much more worrisome that any distress cries through the modern means of communication that promises to be swift and efficient to get the attention of security personnel seem to dissipate into thin air as if the community has been thrown into a region of oblivion from where it cannot be heard.”
The statement said the church acknowledged that the people of Bokkos, Barkin Ladi and Mangu, and, indeed, Plateau State as a whole were peace-loving and hospitable people undeserving of such visitation of mayhem.

The release sympathised and mourned “with the innocent victims of these heinous acts, and call on the security agencies to beef up security measures to curb further occurrences and restore the erstwhile peaceful status quo of Bokkos, Barkin Ladi and Mangu as well as Plateau State as a whole”.
The church called on government agencies, corporate organisations and good-spirited individuals to expedite action for the immediate provision of relief materials to the displaced victims and those in the IDP camps.

It stated, “We also urge the government to step up efforts at fishing out the perpetrators and bringing them to book by the requirements of justice.
“We encourage the entire people of Plateau State to remain steadfast in its reputable peaceful disposition and to initiate measures of protection against further attacks.
“While the church mourns with Plateau on the dastardly act, we take solace in the word of God that sorrow, death, and pain will all end when Jesus wipes away all tears in our eyes. Revelation 21:4.”

Middle Belt Forum Alleges Gunmen Inform of Impending Attacks
As Nigeria mourns the recent bloody attacks on some communities in Plateau State, Deputy National Publicity Secretary of Middle Belt Forum (NBF), Stanley Kavwam, said insurgents had sent a letter of an impending attack to a community in the state.
Speaking yesterday during an interview on AriseTV, Kavwam said the terrorists were planning to launch the attack on Pushit community in Mangu Local Government Area on December 29.

Kavwam alleged that the military was aware of the identity of the attackers and their hideouts, adding that some communities are still being invaded.
He stated, “While I was driving down from Jos to this place, I received a call. A letter was sent to my own village by the terrorists that the attackers were going to invade on the 29th of this December.
“All the attacks that were orchestrated, there was a letter to that effect that was dropped by an anonymous person, intimating the residents of Mangu LGA that there would be attacks.”

Commenting on the question of informing the security forces of the impending attacks, Kavwam said over 30 distress calls were made to the security personnel before the recent attacks in Plateau State.
He said most of the communities attacked in Plateau were Christian settlements, adding that the operation usually lasted for about 24 hours without security intervention.
Kavwam said security agencies knew that an attack was coming before the Christmas eve massacre.
He stated, “They received about 37 distress calls, that is Operation Safe Haven or the Joint Task Force. About 37 distress calls!! Yet, nothing was done.
“All the casualties that we are talking about are in a community inhabited by Christians and the security forces know the attackers, they even know their hideouts for the two decades.

“They know where they orchestrate the attacks from because that autonomous community called Manga, which is at the foot of Bokkos hills, bordering Wamba in Nasarawa state to the south.
“It’s this autonomous community from where these attacks are orchestrated from, just the same way we have in the Mandara hills in Borno State.”

House Minority Caucus Alleges Collusion, Conspiracy in Plateau Carnage
Minority Caucus of the House of Representatives alleged that there was an act of collusion and conspiracy in the bloodletting going on in Plateau State.
Minority Leader, Hon. Kingsley Chinda, in a statement yesterday, said what was more sinister was that warnings of impending attacks were unheeded by security agencies, coupled with the apparent unwillingness of the political leadership to arrest perpetrators and nip violence in the bud.

Chinda said, “The invasion of five communities and the killings of over seventy persons by unknown gunmen in Gashish and Ropp Districts of Barkin Ladi and Bokkos local government areas of Plateau State on Christmas eve have raised national and global concerns about the security of persons in Nigeria, particularly the North-central region of Nigeria and murders that have gone for too long on the Plateau.”
According to him, these murders, which have become the cyclical outcomes of inter-communal violence in Plateau State, show how grievances between communities can be turned into organised violence by unidentified groups and persons who use violent methods to address perceived differences.
The caucus added that when Jos was turned into an infernal theatre and a killing field in which 1,000 people lost their lives in 2001, many thought that the violent expressions of differences had reached the zenith.

Unfortunately, it said more attacks followed in Jos, Wase, Langtang North, Langtang South, Shendam, Mikang, Qua’an Pan, Barkin Ladi, and Riyom, resulting in many deaths and the destruction of property.
The caucus doubted that the reasons adduced by observers for the state of affairs, which ranged from  internecine fights between indigenes and settlers for natural resources to inter-ethnic rivalry ensuing between ethnic groups no longer appear plausible, in view of the increasing rates of attacks, sophistication of invasions of communities, and the anonymity of the perpetrators of the attacks.

It noted that there was something about this anonymity which made the murders of the Plateau sinister.
The caucus said, “What is more sinister is that warnings of impending attacks are unheeded by security agencies, coupled with the apparent  unwillingness of the political leadership to arrest perpetrators and nip the violence in Plateau State in the bud.
“If the accounts of witnesses are to be believed, what stands clear is the act of collusion and conspiracy in the bloodletting. The murders on the Plateau have gone on for too long and must be stopped now!”