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Peace c’ttee meets in Jos

By Ahmed I. Shekarau & Rakiya Muhammad, in Jos

Following the ethno-reli-gions violence in Yelwa town of Shendam local government area of Plateau State in which more than 350 people were feared killed, Muslim residents of the locality have resolved to quit the area.

A community leader and chairman of the ex-officio committee of Tatgong Development Organisation (TADO), Yelwa, Malam Lawal Adamu Waziri, told Daily Trust in a telephone interview yesterday, that the Muslim residents of Yelwa town had resolved to quit collectively because they found the area unsafe for them and a Muslim resident of Shendam town, 28-year-old Rayyanui M. Haruna, told Daily Trust in Abuja: "I travelled all the way to Masaka (in Nasarawa State), to rent a house where we want to relocate our parents, even though we had already moved them out and they are temporarily accommodated in Lafia."

Waziri said the people of Yelwa were predominantly Muslims who were surrounded by non-Muslim towns and villages which are allegedly hostile to them. "Before now, we used to have some level of confidence in the Dariye-led government in the state. But since we read his March 20 interview with the Saturday Champion where he bundled all Hausa/Fulani residents of Plateau as unruly, we began to have second thoughts

"Moreover, with the tactical withdrawal of police and soldiers brought here to ensure law and order on the eve of the latest attacks on us, we have no option but to agree with suspicions of the tacit endorsement of the massacre of our people by some prominent personalities in the state," Waziri said.

The community leader, however, said that the people of Yelwa have resolved to contact the National Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), and the national headquarters of the Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI), who would liase with governors of some northern states, "and find habitable place(s) for us so that we can move out of this place at the same time as a community."

Waziri also said the Yelwa community had resolved to petition the National Assembly, the president and the NSCIA "to seek for justice, even while we get out of this place", saying that their feeling of insecurity had been heightened in Yelwa, by "the brazen refusal of the authorities in Plateau State to protect our lives and property and left us to the vicissitudes of the Taroh armed bandits."

Daily Trust learnt further that Muslim residents of Zoimo and Dokan Tofa village also in Shendam local government area, and Dokan Kasuwa in Quan Pan local government were fleeing in droves for safety.

Meanwhile, the presidential peace initiative committee on the Plateau crisis held its maiden meeting yesterday, with the chairman of the committee, Alhaji Shehu Idris, the Emir of Zazzau, decrying what he described as the senseless killings in the southern zone of the state.

The emir who was speaking at the opening session of the meeting in Jos, expressed regret that the recent crisis in Yelwa, Shendam, came shortly after the inauguration of the peace committee, and pointing out that Plateau State was blessed with vast resources, he urged the people of the state to find ways of harnessing their resources for useful gains instead of fighting one another.

He stressed the need for steps to be taken to avert recurrence of the crisis and prevent such from having a spiral effect on other parts of the state, and promised that the peace committee would work towards finding lasting solutions to the crisis.

The deputy governor of the state, Chief Michael Botmang, expressed concern that since September 7, 2001, when the crisis erupted in the state, the government had held more than 100 meetings at various levels trying to resolve it but was confident that the committee would find lasting solutions to the crisis and appealed to people in the state to stop fighting one another.

The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Northern states and Abuja, also lamented the increasing wave of "terrorist" activities in the northern states alleging that "mercenaries" were being used in the Plateau mayhem.

Addressing newsmen in Kaduna, the acting chairman, northern CAN, Bishop Kevin Aje, the Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, made reference to the violent clashes in places like Kaduna, Kano, Yobe and Plateau states as a clear pointer to the fact that terrorism had found firm root in the country.

CAN, which held a one- day meeting on various national issues, called on governments at all levels to do all they could to curtail this ugly trend, wants the government to "fish out those who are behind these acts of terrorism", and called on the federal government to adequately police Nigeria’s borders, especially its airspace, by using the recently launched satellite (Sat 1) to monitor activities at the borders.

CAN also commended the decision of the federal government to return the New Nigerian to its original owners, the northern state governments, but urged the states to take a cue from the action by returning all mission schools they took over.

The communiqué was satisfied that the storm raised over the oral polio vaccine had subsided, "as it is now clear that the vaccines are not injurious to health", and appealed to Nigerians to cooperate with government to ensure the success of the second phase of the immunisation programme.

CAN also commended the federal government for banning the importation of goods that could be locally produced, expressing the hope that such a step would boost production in local industries now operating under difficult conditions.

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HUNDREDS KILLED IN NIGERIA MASSACRE

At least 630 people are estimated to have been killed in an attack on a Nigerian Muslim community by a Christian ethnic militia.

The reports come from local people and a senior Red Cross official at the site of a mass grave in the central rural town of Yelwa.

"The figure is correct. All the bodies were gathered at the traditional leader's house and then were buried behind it," Umar Abdu Mamairiga, the Nigerian Red Cross's national disaster management officer, told the AFP news agency.

"They are talking about 630, but there might be more," he added, confirming a figure given to reporters by local councillor Yakubu Haruna, by the side of a fresh 50-by-10 metre burial plot.

Ten fresh plots, still stinking of recent deaths, lie behind the chief's house that serves as a meeting place in Yelwa, a mainly Muslim market town, in a walled compound overshadowed by a water tower.

A previous official toll for the attack reported 67 dead, but Nigerian police often deliberately play down casualty figures and one of the country's most senior Muslim leaders has claimed that between 200 and 250 people died.

A Red Cross emergency team arrived in Yelwa for the first time on Thursday, and were immediately asked to treat several dozen people for gunshot and machete wounds.

The injured were mainly young men, but at least one baby had been had been shot through the foot, and another had had its jaw smashed.

Late on Sunday, a heavily armed Tarok gang stormed Yelwa, a farming community in the Shendam local government area of central Nigeria's Plateau State, 185 miles east of Abuja.

The attack appears to be part on an ongoing feud between the rival Tarok and Hausa ethnic groups which has claimed hundreds of lives over the past three years.

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The killing in the North will never stop until a solution is found on the best way to pacify the spirit of the Igbos and Easterners killed in that region by you and your fathers before you over the years but especially in the late 1960's.
Daily Independent Online. * Thursday, June 10, 2004.

Religious riot in Adamawa

• Police confirm nine killed, curfew imposed

By Sule Lazarus

Special Correspondent,

Yola

A dusk to dawn curfew was on Wednesday slammed on Numan, Adamawa State by Governor Boni Haruna following an outbreak of ethno-religious violence in which the police have confirmed nine people dead.

The governor visited the town to assess the extent of the damage and gave a shoot-on-sight order to the security agencies.

Trouble started on Tuesday when disagreement between Bachama youths and Hausa youths at the controversial mosque close to Hamman Bachama’s palace snowballed into a full-blown fight.

Work on the mosque had been suspended by the state security council earlier this year as a result of a dispute.

Hausa youths were said to have mobilised to the sight to commence work, a development opposed by the Bachamas who insisted the construction should stop as directed by the security council.

They challenged the Hausas; it led to a break down of law and order in which unofficial sources said no fewer than 40 persons died.

In the violence that last overnight, houses, markets, worship centres, vehicles and other valuables were razed, leading to a mass exodus of residents to perceived safe places such as barracks and neighbouring villages.

Announcing a shoot-on-sight order to the police and soldiers battling to restore peace to the troubled town, an enraged Haruna declared that the government could no longer condone such senseless killings and wanton destruction of property.

His words: “Police, Army, direct your men, anybody found causing trouble, I mean anybody, should be killed. Enough is enough, we cannot continue like is.

“I will go to any extent to secure peace in the state at the cost of anything and if I am the problem, I am ready to sacrifice my job for peace to reign and I will take any risk to ensure peace in the state.

“I can assure you that we are going to ensure that far reaching decisions will be taken to end the recurrent crisis in Numan”.

Haruna said he has contacted the President for security reinforcement from adjourning states to restore peace and confidence in the people and to bring back fleeing residents.

Earlier, the paramount ruler of Bachama, Freddie Soditi Bonjo, expressed regret over the violence, which also happened exactly a year ago, following the killing of a female Evangelist, Jinkai Ethan.

Secret killings and mass movement were said to be going on still on Wednesday despite the heavy security presence.

Refugee camps have sprung up in many places. Displaced persons who have nowhere to go gather under trees and uncompleted buildings and scramble for any meal that come their way.

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Imposes curfew
From Abel Orih in Yola

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Adamawa State governor, Bonnie Haruna, yesterday ordered security operatives to shoot on sight anybody found fomenting trouble in Numan. The governor also imposed a dusk to dawn curfew in the area.

Haruna's tough stance was a reaction to the Tuesday outbreak of inter-ethnic clash between some Bachama and Hausa youths in the area. The clash had led to the death of many residents while houses and other properties valued at millions of naira were destroyed.

Many wounded people were late Tuesday taken to the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Yola for treatment, a development which created tension in the capital city.

Haruna, who was visibly angered by the sight of the victims of the crisis at the Numan General Hospital and the FCM Yola, said he could not understand why any reasonable person would go to such extent to unleash violence on his society.

He then ordered that, "anybody that is seen attacking, torching a house or any property of others should be shot on sight immediately."

The governor said the curfew will remain in place until the situation is fully under control. He said government will not fold its arms and watch people take laws into their hands.

According to him, his administration has put all machinery in motion to receive more security assistance from all the neighbouring North-eastern states with a view to ensuring unconditional peace in Numan and its environs.

While on an on the spot-assessment of the crisis ridden area, the governor paid a courtesy call on the traditional ruler of the Bachama chiefdom, Hamma Bachama Frediti Bongo, who gave him an account of what led to the crisis.

The Hamma Bachama told the governor that the clashes resulted from disagreement between some Bachama and Hausa youths over an issue, which he said was already before the chairman of the local government for proper settlement.

He said when he got the news of the disagreement, he did all he could by alerting the local government council to quickly intervene. He said when the call was not heeded, he delegated the Secretary of his Emirate Council to go and ask the youths to avoid any rift and go their different ways. He added that his efforts could, however, not stop the youths from eventually confronting themselves in the bloody clash which later enveloped the entire area.

He, however, denied the insinuation that the crisis was as a result of an arrangement by the Bachama youths to mark the one year anniversary of the pastor who was slain last year by an Hausa man. He said the issue of the murdered pastor had been forgotten long ago and could not have given rise to another bloody clash between the two communities in the area.

In his reply, the governor reiterated his administration's commitment to ensuring a lasting peace in the state. "Honestly, I will go to any extent to secure peace at the cost of anything. Even if it means that I am the cause of breach of peace in this state, I can put my job on the line and make room for others," he said.

"But if on the other hand there are some people that have decided to be the problem then they should also be prepared to face the consequences of their actions or inaction as the case may be.

"If a governor of a state can be suspended for the sake of breach of peace then it also suggests that before you pull anybody down, you have to bear it at the back of your mind that you too can be pulled down 10 times.

"I am going to pursue it at the risk of anything, and unless we take this kind of action, we are not likely to meet our objectives," he said.

THISDAY investigation in Numan shows so many torched houses belonging to both camps were damaged beyond recovery. Also, cars and other valuable properties of people were vandalised. The worst affected areas of the town are the residential areas of the Hausa group in Numan.

The town has become deserted. During THISDAY's visit to the area, there was mass exodus of people who were initially trapped in the fiery exchange. Some Hausa speaking people alleged that the Bachamas will still attack them.

Meanwhile, Haruna has approved the constitution of an administrative committee to handle the procurement and distribution of relief materials to the victims of the crisis to provide succour for them.

The membership of the committee include the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Alhaji Ibrahim Bapetel who will serve as chairman; Commissio-ner for Health, Dr. Saidu N. Morupwa; Commissioner for M.I.B.A.D, Hon. Jonathan Sanda; Commissioner for Special Duties, Adiel Kurda; and Special Adviser (Security), Orison Grema.

Other members include Phanuel Mosu, Special Adviser (Revenue); P.P. Power, Secretary Local Government Service Commission; Dr. Danburam of the Federal Medical Centre Yola; P.M.O. Numan; representative of the Directorate of the State Security Services (SSS); repre-sentatives of the Police, Army, and J.D. Atiku who is to serve as Secretary of the committee. The committee is expected to commence work immediately.

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