By: Mayen Etim
KADUNA, North-West, Nigeria – The Southern Kaduna Peoples Union, (SOKAPU) has called on the military authorities to investigate claims by attacked villagers over the alleged involvement of their personnel that may have compromised their neutrality in the Southern Kaduna conflicts.
President of the Union, Hon. Jonathan Asake, stated this in a statement made available to the media in Kaduna on Friday.
According to him, surviving victims of attacks in some cases Community have testified that the armed Fulani attackers were seen accompanied by men in army camouflage riding in Hilux vans painted in military colours.
He added that the men in uniform teamed up with the Fulani attackers, using sophisticated weapons to bomb some homes, especially that of the paramount ruler and the former ECOMOG field commander.
Asake further said that villagers had earlier observed that in the evening of the Magamiya and Matyei attacks, all security checkpoints within the vicinity of the troubled areas were seen being dismantled to the surprise of the villagers.
He also said more worrisome, there are allegations that these attackers were housed in the Hausa-Fulani settler community of Zangon Kataf Town and it is from there they operate. “We believe that these claims need to be investigated by the relevant authorities,” he said.
Hon. Asake urged the Government to set up the machinery to bring the perpetrators of these heinous crimes to book.
He said there must be a move by the Authority to return displaced communities to their homelands, rehabilitate and compensate displaced persons.
The Union also pleaded with the Government to build IDP camps and direct NEMA, SEMA, among other agencies, to provide relief materials to displaced people.
The statement reads in part; “We call on the government to facilitate the formation of Civilian JTF across our communities to forestall incidences of fake security personnel going into our communities to unleash terror attacks on our people.
“We call on relevant security agencies to carry out a cordon-and-search operation in the Hausa-Fulani settler community of Zangon Kataf town where these attackers are said to operate from as it was done in Ladduga in 2014 to retrieve deadly weapons in their possessions.
“It is our considered view that the intractable security situation is due to the unwillingness by Governor el-Rufai to tackle the security challenges headlong. We, therefore, call on the Federal Government to declare a state of emergency on Kaduna State.
“We call on the Federal Government to immediately declare these armed Fulani Herdsmen, Kidnappers, bandits, or whatever name they parade they are called as Terrorists.
“Let me state here for the umpteenth time loud and clear, that whoever comes to our communities, either as individual or group, to kill, maim, rape, destroy and displace our people and take over our homelands, no matter how long it takes, every square inch of our lands will be recovered by our generation or future generations.”