Plateau State Governor, Barr. Caleb Mutfwang, has described the recent attacks and killings of innocent residents in Bokkos Local Government Area as an “act of genocide and a deliberate effort to impoverish the community and displace them from their ancestral lands.”
Governor Mutfwang who made the assertion during an interview on ARISE TV on Monday night, condemned the wave of attacks in the council, describing them as unprovoked and warned of an emerging pattern of violence closely linked to the farming seasons in the area.
“I would say it unapologetically, what happened in the last two weeks in Bokkos is genocide. I say it unreservedly,” Mutfwang stressed.
Debunking insinuations that the attacks were politically motivated, the governor said:
“No one has given me any reason to believe that what happened was politically motivated, and if there is any such suggestion, I’ll be glad to receive the evidence of such because these were unprovoked attacks on innocent people, vulnerable people.
“And there has been a pattern over the years, that we discovered that the onset of the farming season, these attacks normally come in, and then there’s a respite when people manage to go to the farm and farm the little farmlands that remain and then when the harvest is about to come in, there’s another wave of attacks.
“So, it suggests to us that this is a well-coordinated plan to keep the people in those areas in perpetual poverty.
“It is possible that there could have been tensions in the past between communities, but I’ve challenged anyone to tell me who the feuding communities are.
“If we knew any community feuding with another community, we’ll be able to step in and bring in a reconciliation process.
“But at the moment you are dealing with attackers that are faceless, and so you just leave it to the fact that this is ill-motivated and is aimed at driving the people out of their lands, because we have had situations where these things have happened before, and when people are driven out of their lands for three to five years, there’s an occupation.
“And so that leaves us with the suggestion with the understanding that this is about land grabbing.
“I’ve had people dispute that land grabbing is the motive but we are yet to find evidence to the contrary. These communities have lived in peace with other ethnic nationalities, with other people of religious persuasions.
“The interesting thing you will know on the Plateau is that many families are inter-religious, and so religion is not so much the issue. I think that here we are dealing with some powerful forces who mobilise these faceless people and come and unleash it on these natives.
“And at the end of the day, the natives are left defenseless because they never envisaged that this kind of attack will happen.”
Mutfwang however pledged that despite the devastation, his administration is determined to ensure peace returns to the affected communities while affirming that he remains undeterred and determined to seek solutions.
“I cannot be overwhelmed. If there is anything I’m propelled to look to dig in and look for solutions. What can we do better than we have been doing before?
“How can we mobilise the existing assets, deploy them more strategically? And any other suggestion. We are open to suggestions on possible causes and what solutions we can deploy.
“But I can tell you that more than ever before, myself, the people of Bokkos and Plateau State are more determined than ever that we are not going to succumb to this attack.
“We are not going to be defeated. We are frustrated but we are not going to let this go, and we are hoping that the federal government will continue to collaborate with us, cooperate with us to bring the perpetrators to book.
“Like the Chief of Army Staff confirmed, a few arrests have been made. They are making useful disclosures to the security agencies.
“We’ll take it up from there. For once, we are determined that people who are found to be guilty will be prosecuted, and we want to ensure that external forces are not allowed to interfere in this matter.
“We are not going to allow anybody to disrupt the gains we had made over the last one year in terms of peace and stability in the state.
“Every Nigerian was singing the praise of Plateau, that peace had returned, and this breach is a setback to us. We will recover from it, and we will push forward,” he added.
© Ripples Nigeria
