Governor Caleb Mutfwang of Plateau State has warned the Federal Government that if urgent measures are not taken to address the long-standing violence claiming lives in the state, the situation in Nigeria may lead to what happened in Somalia.
According to the Daily Post, Mutfwang made this known while speaking during the visit by the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, who led some serving and former members of the House on a condolence visit to him on Saturday in Jos, over the recent massacre of over 200 people in Bokkos and Barkin Ladi local government areas of the state.
He said, “It is unfortunate that this cycle has continued for years. We are praying that as a nation we will get it right so that we toe the path of justice and don’t allow people to slip into self-help, because once we allow the people to go into self-help, we will become another Somalia.
“I think I can, with all boldness, say that I see a desire for a shift with the current president. I see a desire to change the narratives, rewrite the story and get things right. I have interacted with him a couple of times, and I think he carries a burden to end this violence.
“What we need is a mass of critical leaders to rally around him to be able to expand his scope so that he understands the root and immediate causes of these problems and to proffer solutions.”
The Governor added, “There is an economy that has been built around this insecurity. We need to know who the financiers are and who paid for the hundreds of AK-47 rifles. Where did they get them from?”
Mutfwang however restated his commitment to working together with the Federal Government to end the decades-long attacks in the state.
The Governor further expressed appreciation to the former Speaker for always identifying with Plateau State, advising him not to be silent but to keep pushing for the interests of the people.
Also speaking during the visit, Dogara advised President Bola Tinubu not to follow the footsteps of the previous leaders who merely expressed condolences in the face of killings, emphasising the need for decisive action as Commander-in-Chief.
Dogara encouraged Tinubu to use all available means to identify and bring perpetrators of violence to book, across the country, warning that failure to act, serves as an incentive for continued violence.
“The perpetrators of this violence are not just crazy but are very dangerous, and the truth is that they won’t just stop until we stop them. We must stop them. Who has the responsibility to stop them? It is the Commander-in-Chief, but previously, they reduced themselves to mourners-in-chief instead.
“It means using whatever coercive security apparatus we have as a nation to locate these perpetrators and their sponsors wherever they are littered in the ungoverned spaces that we have in Nigeria, whether in Plateau, Nasarawa, Benue, Katsina, Zamfara, Sokoto or in southern Kaduna or the south; we must locate them, and after locating them, the Commander-in-Chief must take justice to them or bring them to justice,” Dogara advised.
