Security: Governor Mutfwang expresses worries, says Plateau State may become another Somalia

Governor Caleb Mutfwang has expressed fears that Plateau State could find itself in a similar direction as war-torn Somalia if the raging violence in the state is not nipped in the bud.

Governor Mutfwang said this while receiving 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 following the recent attacks that led to the killing of over 200 people in Bokkos and Barkin Ladi local government areas.

He highlighted the urgent need to tackle the cause of violence while stressing the key roles of stakeholders in the state in finding a lasting solution.

The governor 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 round him to be able to expand his scope so that he understands the root and immediate causes of these problems and to proffer solutions.”

Mutfwang 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?”

Earlier, the former Speaker who was in the state to commiserate with the governor and the people of Plateau charged president Tinubu to employ the needed means to identify and bring the non-state actors behind the crime to justice.

“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.”