AdminHuman Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has accused the Nigerian government of paying lip service to the persistent killings of plateau state natives because the victims are neither Hausa nor Fulani.
HURIWA alleged that over 300 Plateau State natives have been killed since December 24, 2023 till date by mostly armed Fulani terrorists allegedly paid by herders seeking to take over the lurch rich agricultural landed assets in the State owned by natives.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelThe Rights group also condemned what it described as the conspiracy of silence of the northern governors and political elites who vehemently protested the lynching to death of 16 suspected kidnappers from Kano in Uromi, Edo State by a crowd that mistook the ‘travelling HAUSA/FULANI hunters’ for kidnappers unleashing violence on an industrial scale in Edo State.
The group said: “The hypocrisy of Northern Muslim political and military elites to the constant killings of mostly Christian natives of Plateau State is deeply troubling just as the normalisation of these intermittent killings by the security forces and the political authority in Abuja is highly hypocritical and paints a picture of a government that is on the same page with the armed killers unleashing devastating violence on Plateau State citizens.
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“The fact is that even after the Plateau state governor made a categorical statement confirming the serial killings as genocide, everyone of the important military and civilian officials and officers in the current administration pretended like the governor was speaking in tongue. If it was the Kano State governor that made assertion that HAUSA/FULANIS of Kano State are victims of genocide, the entirety of the service chiefs and the National Assembly leadership including officials in the presidency would have adopted immediate and far-reaching mechanisms to get to the roots of the allegation. But because it is the Christian governor of the Christian state in the North that made the assertion, everyone is pretending to be deaf and dumb. This is injustice at a highly sophisticated and industrial scale.”
In a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, HURIWA carpeted the key functionaries of the central government for merely paying ordinary lip’s service to the blood lettings in plateau state only because the victims are evidently not from the politically connected ethnicity.
“We know that these persistent killings, going on in Plateau State and exacerbated since the Christmas Eve genocide of 2023, were to happen in Kastina, Kano or Adamawa, either the vice president, Kashim Shettima, or the national security adviser, Nuhu Ribadu would have relocated to the crime scenes to lead the counter attack. But the victims dying in their tens are Christian from minority ethnic communities in the North, they are politically marginalised and even their complaints of genocide is looked upon as the talk of some very few and powerless people who should be overlooked.
Plateau State Governor, Caleb Muftwang, had decried the attacks on some communities in his state, saying bandits have taken over 64 communities.
The governor, who appeared on Channels Television’s Politics Today, Tuesday, said: “These communities that have been recently attacked were part of the communities that were attacked in 2023 but they survived it and rebuilt themselves. The Ruwi community that was first attacked lost about 17 people in 2023 but they bounced back to show you the resilience of the people,” the governor said.
Over 50 persons were killed within a week in attacks over five communities that left over three hundred houses burnt by suspected herdsmen.
The Plateau State Government, through the Secretary to the Government, Samuel Jatau, also visited some of the affected communities to ascertain the extent of damages and also donate relief materials to affected victims.
Besides, HURIWA lamented that at least 40 people have been killed after armed men stormed Zike community in the Kwall district of Bassa Local Government Area, Plateau State, in North-central Nigeria. The brutal assault began shortly after midnight on Monday, 14 April, and lasted nearly two hours, leaving dozens dead, homes in ruins, and survivors in mourning.
Joseph Chudu Yonkpa, National Publicity Secretary of the Irigwe Youth Movement (IYM), a local youth organisation, confirmed the incident to HumAngle. He said many of the injured are receiving treatment at the Jos University Teaching Hospital and other nearby medical facilities.
IYM said hours before the attack, it had raised the alarm about a potential threat, alerting residents and security operatives stationed there. However, despite the warning, the gunmen were neither intercepted nor confronted during the assault. “The security people only showed up this morning,” he added.
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HURIWA however, lambasted the central government for not prioritising the security of the lives and property of the natives of Plateau State since December 2023.
