An ex-Youth and Sports Development Minister, Solomon Dalung, has described the weekend killing of over 50 people in Bokkos Local Government Area of Plateau State as genocidal as he knocked the President Bola Tinubu administration for perceived complacency in tackling the persistent insecurity in the state.
Speaking during the Arise TV Morning Show interview on Monday, he said, “There is nothing like herder-farmer clashes on the Plateau. These are terrorists. They have enclaves.
“They grab land, wrestle cattle, and displace natives. In the bush, there is a government, and these places are known.”.
Insisting that the Ministry of Livestock Development, created by the Federal Government, cannot solve the crisis, he said, “Let us not be hiding about the Ministry of Livestock. Ministry of Livestock cannot even do anything about this problem.”
He lamented, “If you sum up this, you will come back to this issue of lack of a political will because if the political will to deal with the situation is there, these people will be given their rightful designation.”
Dalung insisted that the attackers were terrorists and that the attacks were genocidal, saying, “If we must be very honest in dealing with the Plateau situation, first, we will have to stop pretending that it is herder-farmers’ clashes. Not at all. It is terrorism.
“It is genocidal because it has met the international definition of genocide. When a group of people attack another group with the intention of wiping them off the face of the earth, it is genocide.
“When you employ a policy of starvation and try to use that to wipe out a community or a group of people, it’s genocide. So what is happening is genocidal.
“There was no farm or other animals that were either wrestled by the community or they trespassed into any farmland that resulted in this series of attacks we are hearing.”
His words, “We couldn’t do anything because there are no access roads. I couldn’t fathom that because in a technologically-driven economy like ours, would the issue be that of access roads? What happened to drones and cameras, other sophisticated gadgets of intelligence gathering?”
Dalung said, “The problem is for the Federal Government to designate these people with their rightful names, consider them criminals, and stop even attaching ethnic identity to them. Yes, predominantly they belong to an ethnic nationality. But I don’t see them as operating in the overall interest of that particular ethnic nationality.
“Rather, they are criminals. And so if we do not treat them as criminals, we will miss the point, and we’ll continue to hold visits to Plateau State by government officials, and they will be on top of the situation while the criminals are on top of the situation.”
Also, he questioned the readiness of the security agencies to tackle the crisis.
The ex-Minister spoke following the killing over the weekend after gunmen launched fresh attacks on several communities in the state.
At last 40 persons were killed and about 1,000 displaced in last week’s attack on Hurti, Manguna District of Bokkos Local Government Area of Plateau.
The Village Head of Hurti, Mr Maren Aradong, said this when the Secretary to the State Government, Mr Samuel Jatau, led other government officials on an assessment visit to the community on Sunday in Jos.
On April 2, gunmen attacked Hurti, Josho, Daffo, and other communities of the locality.
Governor Caleb Mutfwang had described the recent attacks and killings in some parts of the state as a coordinated crime sponsored by conflict merchants, and not farmer-herder clashes.
