Date Published: 01/19/10

Jos Riots: Rein in local terrorists: HURIWA charges F.G

The federal government must rein in, prosecute and sanction all local terrorists who kill, maim and destroy lives of citizens in all parts of the country in the guise of religious unrests if Nigeria hopes to be delisted from the list of international terrorists’ watch list of the United States of America in the wake of the December 25 th 2009 failed bombing of an American Airliner by a Nigerian citizen – Umar Farouk Abdumutallab.    

Human Rights Writers’ Association of Nigeria, (HURIWA), a development focused and democracy inclined non-governmental organization which gave the charge in a statement by its National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and made available to Journalists strongly condemned the mass killing of innocent residents of Jos by some armed youths on Sunday 17 th January 2010. The rights group tasked Government to put measures in place to stop the constant religious riots in parts of the North if democracy and development must take root in Nigeria.  

Specifically, media report quoted the Plateau state police commissioner Mr. Greg Anyanting as saying that the recent Jos crisis started when some Muslim youths in the early hours of the morning without any provocation, started attacking some worshipers in Nasarawa Gwong area, especially around Saint Michael’s Catholic Church in Jos Plateau State. No fewer than 20 persons were killed in the fresh violence which happened only a year after a similar mass murder took place in the Jos North local government area. 

HURIWA lamented what it called ‘unfortunate intermittent mass murder and hate killings’ by local terrorists whose stock in trade is to cause maximum chaos  in the name of religion, kill, maim, and destroy human lives and hard earned property of several thousands of Nigerian citizens in the name of religion.       

The group blamed the gross lack of will power on the part of both the federal and plateau state governments to arrest and prosecute perpetrators of violence in the competent court of law for mass murder and the politicization of the November 2008 religious killings in Jos, Plateau State for the recent mass murder of innocent Christian worshipers by some misguided Islamic fundamentalists who allegedly deployed the use of all kinds of weapons to unleash terrorism and hate crime on innocent citizens. 

Huriwa averred that soon after the November 2008 religious riots ended in Jos, it criticized the decision of the wife of the President Hajia Turai Yar’adua for taking side in the religious violence when she paid a visit to only displaced Moslem families and never bordered to console or visit the tens of thousands of other people with different religious orientations. The rights group also asserted that the ill-advised decision by both the federal and Plateau state governments to set up two different probe panels on the violent religious crisis in Jos in November 2008, sent a wrong signal to sponsors and actors of the bloody religious violence that Government at every level were unwilling to uncover the remote and immediate circumstances surrounding the unfortunate incident, name and prosecute the perpetrators. 

According to HURIWA: “The ill-advised and emotionally inclined decisions by the federal and Plateau state governments to set up two different and indeed opposing judicial panels to unravel the causes of the November 2008 religious riots sent wrong signal to trouble makers in Jos that the political office holders responsible for the two levels of government are divided along ethnic and religious affiliations. The Nigerian Government at both the federal and state level must form a formidable united force to battle and defeat these religious bigots in all parts of the country, especially in the North to save Nigeria from further international embarrassment like the type we are facing now when a misguided Nigerian religious bigot attempted to bomb a United States Airliner in the name of religion.” 

The human rights group therefore tasked the plateau and federal governments to ensure that all those indicted for sponsoring and participating in all the religious crises in that state and indeed all parts of Nigeria are prosecuted and punished. The rights group also advocated the total disarming of all persons suspected to be in possession of different kinds of arms and ammunitions in Jos with which they foment trouble intermittently. It also called for the restoration of peace and inter-religious dialogues and unity in Jos, Plateau State even as it charged religious and traditional rulers to preach actively against religious motivated hate crime.  

The human rights group also blamed the security community in Jos plateau state for failing to gather sufficient intelligence that would have prevented the out break of religious violence said to have been started by some armed Muslim youths. Huriwa called on the leaders of the security community in Nigeria to provide requisite trainings on intelligence gathering mechanisms for their members so as to prevent the recurrence of such dastardly killings.