‘Mastermind of Plateau killings cut across ethnic, religious lines’

Plateau State government has said those responsible for the killings in the state cut across ethnic and religious lines.

Commissioner for Land and Survey, Yakubu Dati, who spoke to journalists in Lagos at the weekend said the discovery has prompted the state government to adopt multi-pronged strategy to tackle criminal activities and to ensure that no particular ethnic or religious group is persecuted on the existing assumption that killings are being perpetrated by one ethnic group in the state.

 Dati said  those identified by the police as suspected killers of the late Baba Defwan Dariye, father of former Governor Joshua Dariye, were found to have come from the same village as the 93-year old Dariye.

“The unification of criminal elements beyond the fault lines of religion and ethnicity has not only put a lie to claims of linear identity in crime, but speaks to Governor Simon Lalong’s known position of addressing issues of crime and criminality from a fair minded and broad perspective.  This is shocking owing to the fact that as governor of Plateau State, Joshua Dariye did a lot to develop rural communities as well as project hitherto unknown and unheard of ethnic groups in the state, including his Mushere ethnic group to national consciousness through his leaving Plateau better than we met it mantra. 

 “Buoyed by a supportive House of Assembly with Simon Lalong as the then Speaker, the Dariye administration pursued an all-inclusive government that endeared him to the people especially the grassroots who fondly nicknamed him ‘head boy’. That the primary beneficiaries of his projects and famed generosity could murder his father in a callous and heartless manner while he is serving a term at a correctional center however comes as the height of ingratitude and insensitivity to good leadership. 

 “With this exposure, it is time to take a second look at Governor Lalong’s call to separate criminality from primordial sentiments while going all out to smoke out the criminals irrespective of their ethnic or religious identities. This also formed the nucleus of discourse when the President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) Dr. Samson Oyekunle and Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Saad Abubakar visited Jos, under the auspices of the Nigeria inter-religious Council (NIREC). The two religious leaders, alongside state governors and Secretary to the Federal Government, Boss Mustapha, were in Plateau State to preach and promote peaceful coexistence among the adherents of the two major religions in the state, Christianity and Islam,” Dati said.