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From Gyang Bere, Jos
Wednesday, August 25, 2021, will remain etched forever in the minds of Plateau State people as a day that blood flowed freely in the streets of Jos, the state capital, and corpses were conveyed to the seat of power, instead of the mortuary.
Residents woke up with a loud cry over a coordinated attack orchestrated by suspected Fulani bandits at Zangam community in Jos North Local Government Area of Plateau State, leaving 35 persons dead.
The victims were killed in a horrible and terrifying manner. They were gunned down, butchered and roasted like chickens by the attackers while in their sleep.
Those who survived the onslaught by the whiskers cried and wailed for hours without help from security agencies and state government officials.
So, youths from the affected community, who felt betrayed by the inept leadership style of Governor Simon Lalong, mobilized and conveyed the horrific corpses in a van and marched along the streets of Jos to express their displeasure.
The journey with the corpses began from Plateau Specialist Hospital, where no government official came to sympathize with the victims, to the Plateau State House of Assembly, where the angry youths forced themselves into the Assembly complex.
They displayed the bodies on the premises and demanded that the Speaker and members of the House should see how the victims were butchered. It took God’s intervention for the angry youths to listen to the Speaker, Ayuba Abok, who eventually addressed them.
Abok wept profusely before the angry youths and pleaded with them to remain calm, as the House was going into plenary to take stringent decisions about the evil act.
“I want to beg all of you to remain calm; we, as legislators, are sad over the killings in our state and you should know that we don’t have the constitutional right to give directive to the security agencies,” he said.
“We will ask our governor to do the right thing. As a House, we will always stand by the people of Plateau State because it is through your mandate that we are here as legislators. So, go back home and we will make arrangements with government on how the bodies would be buried.”
The youths left the House of Assembly unsatisfied and proceeded with the corpses to the new Government House, Rayfield. The journey created a gridlock along the Secretariat Junction, through Old Airport Road to Rayfield, where some security operatives attempted to scuttle the march but were overwhelmed by the angry youths.
The group moved to the Government House Rayfield, chanting songs, despising the failure of security agencies and Federal Government, who they said have abandoned the natives to die.
Shortly after their arrival, the Deputy Governor, Prof. Sonni Tyoden, and the Secretary to State Government, Prof. Danladi Atu, addressed the youths and pleaded for calm and said that government was taking drastic action to curb a recurrence.
They assured the crowd that Governor Lalong, who had gone to see President Muhammadu Buhari on the persistent killings, was not sleeping over the plights of Plateau people.
He said: “We are extremely sad over this development; we will follow this issue to a logical conclusion. We have directed the security agents to ensure that those who carried out this barbaric act are fished out to face the law.”
It took Tyoden several hours to persuade the youths to convey the corpses to the mortuary at the Jos University Teaching Hospital, where they were kept before mass burial.
Chairman, Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Plateau State, Rev. Fr. Polycarp Lubo, described the killings as babaric and urged Christians in the state to defend themselves.
Lubo said: “I totally condemn this attack; this is inhumanity to man and it is unacceptable. I call on the Federal Government to mobilize more security to Plateau State.
“The security (agencies) here have been doing their best but they are not doing enough. You can see we have about 16 bodies here and we were told that several others were roasted and nobody is saying anything.
“This killing was as a result of the utterances of some Islamic scholars who made nasty statements when some persons were killed one week ago. They said they were going to retaliate, and this is what we are seeing.
“I have told the General Officer Commanding, 3 Division, and the commander of the Operation Safe Haven to call those Islamic scholars to book. I want to say this, that nobody has right over anybody’s life.”
He described the recent killings as worse compare to the last killings that claimed the lives of 23 commuters who were said to be Muslims.
“We have come to realize in this country that there are citizens that are second class; some citizens are superior to others but we know that all of us are human beings, irrespective of religion,” he said.
