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| Governor, Nasarawa, Makura |
A detailed account of Wednesday’s mayhem in the peasant settlement of Agyaragu in Jenkwe development area of Nasarawa State was given yesterday by victims of the violence.
At least 10 people were confirmed killed and over 50 houses destroyed in the crisis ignited by alleged theft of a motorcycle popularly known as achaba.
Also yesterday, the Nasarawa State House of Assembly gave Governor UmaruTanko Al-Makura one week ultimatum to handle security challenges in the state, which, it said, had led to several deaths and destruction of property.
The speaker, Hon. Musa Ahmed Mohammed, who presided over an emergency sitting of the House, lamented that the issue of insecurity had been politicised in the state.
Also yesterday, Al-Makura warned mischief makers fomenting trouble in the state to desist forthwith or face the wrath of the law.
Through his senior special assistant on media and press affairs, Alhaji Sani Musa Mairiga, the governor told journalists in Abuja his administration would not fold its hands and watch some unscrupulous persons wreak havoc on innocent people. The governor said he was disturbed about the incessant loss of life and property in some parts of the state.
Mairiga said those found guilty of fanning the embers of ethnic crisis would not be punished.
Meanwhile, the senator representing Nasarawa North Senatorial Zone, Solomon Ewuga, has distanced himself from insinuations in some quarters that the recurring crisis in the zone involving his kinsmen the Eggons was due to his hidden political ambition to succeed Al-Makura by all means.
Specifically mentioning the Agyaragu and Assakio mayhem, Ewuga said he felt a sense of loss over the death of people and property in the communities.
The Koro and Eggon ethnic nationalities had engaged each other in bloody violence for over nine hours over alleged motorcycle theft by an Eggon youth who allegedly took it to his Koro accomplice resident at the Gwadanye area of the town.
When the local vigilante group went to recover the stolen item, they reportedly met stiff resistance, which led to exchange of words. One of the victims, who sought anonymity for security reasons, said: “We saw hell last Wednesday when the Eggon youths invaded our community.”
The administrator of the development area, Mr. Wuduyamba Agidi, said he was attacked by the Ombatse, a group of militant and spiritual Eggon youths, in his office. The hoodlums, he said, dressed in their traditional black attire and cap, forcing him to escape through the fence of the secretariat.
He said selected homes of influential Koro people were destroyed by the armed youths, an event reminiscent of the Assakio attack about a year ago.
Senator Ewuga said in a release yesterday: “one reason of concern is because my ethnic group, the Eggons, have always been caught in this unseemly web. Additionally, I am a political leader and stakeholder in the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) government of Umaru Tanko Al-Makura. In all the calls I have received, the concern is on my perceived standing in the society and also on the feeling that these repeated cases of violence involving the Eggons are manifest of my hidden political ambition to succeed Governor Umar Tanko Al-Makura by all means. I’ll like to categorically state that it is far from the truth.”.
He noted that those of them who played key roles in the advent of the current government cannot be found to be subverting or undermining the governor’s wish to create a new Nasarawa State. He said he hopes the government in its wisdom will address the unfortunate incident in Agyaragu and deal decisively with all those involved since there is a lot more for politics than is currently presumed. Former president of Evangelical Reformed Church of Christ (ERCC), Revd. Samson Agidi, could not salvage anything from his house as it was the first to be set ablaze by the rampaging Ombatse.
LEADERSHIP WEEKEND checks revealed that the palace of the ‘ZheMigili,’ the paramount ruler of the Koro people, Dr.AyubaAgwadu, consisting of six different sections was destroyed.
A day after the carnage, his barn was still burning. It took the entourage of the state deputy governor, Dameshi Luka Barau, to rtescue some bags of groundnut and maize that were yet to go up in flames, as Dachu was too shocked to move himself. He sat on a tripod of grief: his dead son, burnt house and burning barn.
Recounting his own gory story, Mr. Phillip Agidi, whose uncle, ZheMeri and elder sister were burnt in his house, said his uncle who was the district head of Sabon Rai in Doma local government area was taking refuge in his house following a crisis that besieged the area between the Fulanis and local farmers.
For her part, Mrs .Saraya Philip, a housewife, said she was on her way to the farm when she was recalled by her son who said that their abode was set ablaze. On her return, she picked up her little children and followed a bush path on foot to Lafia, the state capital, a distance of about 20 kilometres.
Ruth Elem, a graduate of International Relations from Tansian University, Oba in Anambra State, on her youth service with Government Secondary School, Akunza Migili, said all she could rescue from her belongings were her credentials and the ‘corp khaki’ dress she was wearing.
Another corps member, Edet Imaobong, a graduate of the University of Ibadan, said although the state government sent soldiers to evacuate corps members from the scene of the crisis, they were abandoned at the overcrowded NYSC lodge opposite Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital in Lafia.
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