Group holds government responsible for Jos massacre
Women mourn in front of a burnt building in the Dogo Nahawa village. Photo: REUTERS
A human rights advocacy organisation, Access to Justice, has blamed the federal government for its failure to prevent last Sunday’s outbreak of religious violence in Jos which claimed an estimated 500 lives, and have demanded that security chiefs in the nation be held accountable.
In a statement jointly signed by the Executive Director of the organisation, Joseph Otteh, and its Programme Officer, Edem Andah, the group also applauded the recent sack of former National Security Adviser, Sarki Mukhtar, and called for more people to be sacked.
“The Nigerian government has failed and let down the people of Jos South Local government and bears full responsibility for this massacre - in addition, of course to the actual perpetrators - for the deaths of hundreds of men, women and children,” said Mr. Otteh.
“Heads of security agencies in the country - the Inspector General of Police, the Chief of Army Staff, the Director General of State Security Service, the National Security Adviser, the Director General of the Nigerian Intelligence Agency, and even for the Minister of Defense - paid from the public tills to maintain peace and order have disappointed Nigerians and should be held accountable, particularly in a case like this where the fatal attacks against ethnic communities in Jos were predictable and foreseeable.”
He therefore described the security lapses that resulted in the attacks as intolerable.
“Their collective and individual failure to forestall acts of renewed violence and terrorism against the people and residents of Plateau State is evidence of serious and intolerable lapses in the discharge of their duties. We just cannot continue to lose thousands of lives at no cost to those responsible for protecting those lives.”
Killing with impunity
In the early hours of Sunday, March 8, suspected Fulani herdsmen had massacred hundreds of villagers in Dogon Na Hauwa Village and two other communities of Jos South Local Government in Plateau State. Most of the victims were women and children. The killers were reportedly avenging the killing of Fulani people in Jos North Local Government Area during an earlier crisis in January..
“These killings are the latest in a cycle of violence that has characterised Plateau State in recent years and has led to the deaths of thousands of people in the presence of “governments” in that state and in Abuja,” said Mr. Otteh. “These killings bring compelling grief, agony, hardship and pain on the survivors and relatives of victims who will forever live under the shadows of that haunting trauma, but also shame, embarrassment and ridicule to Nigeria and our irresponsible governments who consistently, time and time again, fail to secure life, limb and property of Jos residents.”
Passing the buck
Reacting after the massacre, the Governor of Plateau State, Jonah Jang had accused the Nigerian Army of negligence in acting on security warnings given to them before the attack. Mr. Jang, a retired Air Force officer, told journalists that he had received reports of sightings of armed people moving about those villages around 9pm the previous night and had notified the army commander.
“He told me he was going to move some troops there,” he said. “And because it is near where I live, I even saw a tank pass through my house and I thought it was going towards that area. Three hours or so later, I was woken by a call that they have started burning the villages and people were being hacked to death and I started trying to locate the commanders, but I couldn’t get any of them on the telephone. The massacre could have avoided if they acted on my report.”
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