From Jude Owuamanam, Jos
Plateau State government has started the distribution of the N500 million given 500 persons affected by the sectarian strife in the state, amid protestation from the Muslim community in Plateau.
Each of the 500 persons is expected to get N1 million.
The government had compiled the list of the beneficiaries per local government, spread over the 17 local government areas of the state.
But the Muslim community through the Ja’amatu Nasril Islam (JNI) had protested that their members were not included in the list despite the fact they were badly affected in the recent clashes in Mangu local government area of the state.
JNI had addressed a press conference last Saturday, drawing the government’s attention to their earlier letter on the subject. They had threatened to cut all relationships with the Peoples Democratic Party PDP-led administration if their concerns were not addressed.
JNI secretary in the text of the briefing had said, “The Plateau state JNI had had cause to write a letter of complaint to His Excellency Governor Caleb Mutfwang dated September 13 complaining about the lopesidedness in the compilation of the list of 500 families being victims of the crisis in Barkin Ladi, Bassa, Bokkos, Riyom, and Jos South local government areas in the recent past following a N500 million cash assistance brought by her Excellency, Mrs. Oluremi Tinubu.
“In the said letter, the JNI noted that the JNI as a critical stakeholder in the peace process in the state was not invited. We also noted that the JNI had no input in the list of 500 victims of the crisis despite the fact that we have hundreds of Muslims killed, maimed, or displaced in the series of these crises.
“To our dismay, there was no word from the state government apart from an unfortunate rebuttal of our clear and obvious compliant issued by the State Commissioner for Information.
“While waiting for redressing the imbalance and ensuring that justice is done by including Muslim victims of the crisis that are found in all the local government areas to which the donation was intended for the government to close its ears to the genuine concern and it started the distribution of the to the victims in Mangu with no single Muslim included.”
However JNI Legal Adviser, Barrister Ishaq Lawal, told our correspondent on Tuesday that despite these observations, their concerns had not been looked into.
He said, “When we heard that they have started the distribution in Mangu last week, we reached out to our members to determine whether any Muslim got the money. They said no.
The same thing when the beneficiaries from Riyom were getting theirs, we also discovered that no Muslim was included in the largesse.
The Director of Press Affairs to the Governor, Gyang Bere, in reaction said that he was not at the place where the money was being distributed and so couldn’t ascertain the beneficiaries.
He said he was at the House of Assembly where the governor presented the 2024 Appropriation Bill.