Days after the June 4th attack on Rukubi community in Ekye development area of Doma local government council of Nasarawa State by yet-to-be identified gunmen, an alleged plot to attack employees of the Tiv extraction in the services of Ekye, an Agatu dominated development area has been uncovered.
President, Tiv Youth Organisation, TYO, Ekye development area branch, Mr. Francis Tarsaa had alleged that the planned attack was to be carried out against the over 20 Tiv sons and daughters on the pay roll of the development area during the payment of last month’s (May) salary.
The youth president in a chat with newsmen in Lafia, the state capital, few days after the bloody incident, made the allegation even as he appealed to the state Ministry of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs to intervene “for the interest of justice, peace and progress of our dear state”.
“We have it on good authority that plans are being perfected by some Agatu people in Rukubi community to also deny the affected workers of their May salary and I feel the whole world, especially the security agencies that have the constitutional mandate to secure lives and properties of the citizenry”.
Continuing, “It has become necessary for me to raise this alarm because this will not be happening for the first time. In November 2011 when crisis erupted in Ekye development area, a purported order was given by some Agatu elders and youths that our (Tiv) brothers working in the development area should not be paid their salary.”
He recalled with regret, the way and manner the Tiv workers were short-changed of certain percentages of their salary during the period as a result of the “purported and illegal order” given by the Agatu youths and elders, describing it as the handiwork of wicked
individuals and enemies of progress who were bent at worsening the economic hardship being faced by the affected employees.
The youth leader maintained that “none of the Tiv employees has even been found to have a hand in the crisis rocking the area but each time there is an attack, attention is shifted to our Tiv brothers by those who think they have monopoly of violence. We cannot continue like this in the 21st century.”
With the recent attack, analysts are of the conclusion that the unfortunate situation bedevilling the state in recent years leading to loss of lives and property on daily basis has proven to be an unending problem as efforts by both state, federal governments and other stakeholders to bring the situation under control has not yielded the desired results.
The ugly trend which has disagreements between Fulani pastoralists and farmers as one of its major causes and in some cases, a fight between one ethnic nationality against the other, has always assumed new dimension(s) each time efforts aimed at arresting the situation are intensified with a view to achieving lasting peace.
Soon after the occurrence of the renewed crisis, a good number of security personnel were drafted to the affected community among other security measures to prevent further break down of law and order in the area.
While these commendable efforts were being intensified, some hoodlums were alleged to have held a meeting in an undisclosed location in Doma, the headquarters of Doma local government area, perhaps, to strategise on how to carry out a reprisal attack ostensibly on some villages in the neighbouring Benue State, since the said attackers and their sponsors have succeeded in forcing their Tiv counterparts, especially those in Ekye development area of the state out of their ancestral homes.
Friday Magazine reliably gathered that the planed reprisal attack was aborted by military operatives deployed to keep surveillance in the border areas of Nasarawa and Benue State, even as it was learnt that the measure resulted in a bloody clash between the military operatives and the Fulani attackers with the suspected Fulani mercenaries killing and abducting an unspecified number of the personnel while in a mission to forestall law and order.
As if the subsisting allegation on the Agatu people in Rukubi that they harbour Fulani herdsmen to attack Tiv farmers in the neighbouring villages of both Benue and Nasarawa states was not enough, the same Agatu extraction were recently accused of leading some mercenaries to attack their brothers in Benue State.
According to Francis Tarsaa, the Ekye Tiv youth leader, “Our Agatu brothers ought to have sympathised with us considering the economic hardship we have been facing since we were forced out of our homes for over two years now. But for them (Agatu), they have been going about their normal businesses”
He stressed the need for the Police authority and other security agencies in the state to investigate the planed attack, just as he appealed to the development area authority and the committee responsible for payment of salary to carry out the exercise in the state capital, as doing so in the headquarters of the development area was no longer safe for the affected staff.
On the allegation that plans were being perfected to deny the Tiv workers of the development area of their monthly pay, Friday Magazine sought comments from the state commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Barr. Sani Yakubu Hauwa, who debunked the allegation.
According to the commissioner who spoke in a telephone interview with our correspondent, the alleged plan to deny the said workers of their statutory monthly pay was baseless, mere speculation and a calculated attempt by rumour mongers to cause confusion.
“Mr. Journalist, I want to make it clear to you that the allegation has no base because as commissioner for local government and chieftaincy affairs, I stand a better position to take or contemplate such action to be taken against any staff within the local government system in the state, but I have never, neither did anybody came to me to seek such action against any of the said workers”.
“Nobody has ever indicted them of the crisis in the area and I believe it is not their wish for the trouble to happen in their area, so how can somebody say that plans are being perfected to deny them of their salary”?
“As far as I’m concern, nobody is punishing any staff for an offence not committed. You can only be punished when found to have violated civil service rule”.
The commissioner therefore warned those peddling such rumours to desist or have themselves to blame.
It would be recalled that unknown gunmen had, last Tuesday attacked and killed about 40 persons in Rukubi community of the development area, where it was widely speculated that the Tiv people were responsible for the attack.
Death toll in the Rukubi attack was reported to have risen to 40 as at when more corpses were recovered in the surrounding bushes of the affected community.
State deputy governor, Damishi Barau Lucka had expressed shock when he led top government delegation amidst tight security on an on-the-spot assessment of the level of destruction meted on the villagers by the unknown gunmen.
Speaking to newsmen during the deputy governor’s visit, information officer of Ekye development area, Mustapha Danladi Ayaga said the gunmen had also abducted two members of the community, Baba Abari (Male) and a female whose name could not be made known to newsmen.
He pointed out that the militants numbering over 500 were dressed in Mobil Police uniforms and heavily armed with sophisticated weapons ranging from AK47 guns, sub-machines and explosives shooting sporadically as they were strategically positioned round the community to ensure that success was achieved in their dastardly mission.
According to the information officer, “The gunmen, on approaching the community, shot several fishermen who were on the river bank near the community before turning their attack on the village centre. They used explosive devices to pull down structures and set ablaze many vehicles and other valuable worth millions of naira”.
With the series of communal clashes in the state, it is hoped that government would take more proactive measures to bring back the peace in Nasarawa by organising an all-inclusive peace summit that would bring opinion leaders of all the ethnic nationalities in the state to discuss the way forward as severally suggested by some socio-cultural associations like the Mada Development Association being an umbrella body of the Mada nation.