The Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI), an umbrella group for the Nigerian Muslim community, has condemned Sunday’s attacks in Barikin Ladi and Bokkos local government areas of Plateau, where over 150 people were killed on Christmas eve.
The group, led by the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, expressed shock and displeasure over the inhuman attack on citizens in Barikin Ladi and Bokkos communities.
“It is indeed reprehensible and utterly heartless, to say the least,” it said in a statement by its secretary-general, Khalid Aliyu, on Thursday.
“JNI unequivocally condemns with utmost sorrow and concern the dastardly acts of repeated killings on the Plateau and calls on security agencies to intensify efforts in fishing out the culprits and get them punished accordingly.
“It is pertinent to place on record that such acts of killings call for concerted efforts in ending them once and for all, as the recent past killings of over one hundred Tudun-Biri worshippers in Kaduna State, and several others are becoming the new normal particularly in the north and in Nigeria in general,” he said.
“Well-orchestrated”
Armed assailants sacked at least a dozen communities in Bokkos, Mangu and Barkin Ladi local government areas, where they attacked residents with machetes and guns. Some reports say nearly 200 people were killed, and hundreds injured.
The attacks took place in largely Christian communities, sparking claims they were religiously motivated.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks. Plateau state has been plagued for years by ethnoreligious tensions between indigenous farming communities and nomadic Fulani pastoralists.
Previous attacks by either of the sides were hardly punished by the authorities.
The JNI said the latest attacks were “well-orchestrated with perhaps ulterior motives to set the state on political and religious turmoil.”
“JNI reiterates that criminals must not be emboldened in whatever disguise, otherwise, the Nigerian state will become a failed state, if acts of criminalities are not adequately penalised.
“Plateau state should not be allowed to return back to the dark days of unfortunate bloodbath, as human lives seem not to matter to the disgruntled elements.
“Why must the people allow themselves to be used by miscreants and senseless humans at all cost. Plateau people should tell the world that they prefer peaceful coexistence than anarchy.”
Ohaneze wants justice and state police
Further south, the Ohaneze Ndigbo Worldwide, an Igbo socio-cultural group, condemned the killings and called for the restructuring of Nigeria to allow the creation of state police.
The group, led by Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, described the attack as “brutish, cruel and barbaric”, and said massacres have persisted in the country because perpetrators often go unpunished.
“I therefore urge President Bola Tinubu to do everything possible to bring to book those behind the callous crime in Plateau State,” Mr Iwuanyanwu said.
It said the government should adopt state police as “panacea to the incessant loss of lives and property in various states across the country.”
He urged the Igbo leadership in Plateau state to extend all forms of solidarity to the immediate families of the deceased, the displaced and other victims of the attack.
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