By Ugar Ukandi Odey, Jos
Elders Council of the Plateau State chapter of the All Progressives Congress, APC, has commended Governor Simon Lalong on his handling of recent moments of unrest in the State and the trajectory of his administration in keeping peace in the State in the past six years.
The APC Elders however noted that improved security in the state will be the better for it if Governor Lalong harnesses from the arrangements of his predecessor who had trained about three hundred indigenes of the state on intelligence gathering and tracking, and use them to boost the strength of the state owned Operation Rainbow and vigilantes, with a view to step up local policing of the state.
Condemning the attitude of the youths who took the corpses of those killed on the Yelwa Zangam attack and dumped at the Government House as “uncultured and traumatizing”, the Elders say the stand with Lalong and the people of the State at these trying times.
In a 15-point resolution presented at a press conference by Captain J M Din rtd, the Elders noted, among others, that
they “sympathize with the Berom Nation, Irigwe Nation, the families of victims of the Rukuba Road Attacks, the Anaguta Nation, the Fulanis and all families who lost their loved ones on account of the senseless killings”.
They also “condemn in totality any form of unwarranted and unprovoked attack and destruction of human lives, farms and cattle while also calling on the security agencies to be up and doing in the protection of the lives and properties of citizens of Plateau State and Nigeria in General”.
They have also called on the “security agencies to present the perpetrators of the heinous acts for immediate prosecution so that justice will be served to all who are affected”.
According to the statement, they have also called on the “people of Plateau to eschew bitterness and embrace peace, dialogue, reconciliation and forgiveness which is divine”.
“The Plateau State APC Elders Council condemns the uncultured manner with which the corpses of the dead victims were mishandled. It is not in the character of the people of Plateau State to desecrate the body of the dead. This singular behavior has further traumatized and caused pains to the families of the deceased and citizens of the State”, the statement further said.
“Even when we respect the right of our citizens to protest, we advise that protest should be carried out in a responsible and civilized manner.
We call on all citizens of Plateau State to stop forthwith the politicization of killings arising from the crisis for it will do us no good.
“The Council wishes to call on all its citizens including politicians to refrain from influencing and encouraging citizens to resort to self help; this when encouraged will allow for proliferation of arms in our society with attendant negative consequences in the near future”.
