From Jude Owuamanam Managing Editor Northern Operations
JALINGO (Sundiata Post) – Taraba State Government has described the account of the General Officer Commanding 3 Armored Division, Brig. Gen. Benjamin Ahanotu of the recent crisis on the Mambilla Plateau, Taraba state as distorted, tragic and highly partisan .
The state government said from his account it was clear that he was on a mission to satisfy some vested interests in the crisis.
The GOC was said to have led a high military delegation for a peace mission on the Mambilla plateau of Taraba state where he was quoted as saying that what took place between the farmers and herdsmen on the Mambilla Plateau was a genocide.
Speaking at different fora, the attorney general of the state and commissioner for justice, Mr. Yusufu Nya Akirikwen and Governor Darius Ishaku’s special assistant on media, Bala Dan Abu, said Ahanotu’s statement was reckless and unacceptable.
They accused the GOC of speaking in a manner unacceptable and unbecoming of an officer of his rank and training.
While the attorney general, spoke at a media interaction at the weekend in Wukari, the views of the SSA media was contained in a press statement.
The AG said that the military officer should have known that it was his responsibility to defend every Nigerian irrespective of tribe or religion
He explained further that the military general should know that the office he is occupying is temporal, and that there were several others who occupied it before him and he will be judged by posterity after his term.
Akirikwen wondered where Brig-General Ahanotu was when over 300 people were killed in Agatu, in southern Kaduna, in some parts of southern Taraba and in Ekiti State.
“It was not a genocide in Agatu, it was not a genocide in southern Kaduna, it was not a genocide in Delta State, it was not a genocide in Edo State, even Takum Ussa it was not a genocide but on the Mambilla Plateau it is a genocide.”
Meanwhile, Governor Darius Ishaku has promised to prosecute the perpetrators the Mambilla Plateau.
He made the vow in Jalingo, the Taraba State capital, when he played host to the chairman, Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote in his office in Government House, Jalingo.
According to Governor Ishaku, relative peace has returned at the troubled area and the state is working hard to consolidate on the peace to be a lasting one, but promised that his government would go after the perpetrators of the crisis.
“In the Mambilla Plateau normalcy has returned, and we will also go after those responsible for the crisis but we want to consolidate on the peace first,” he stated.
Ishaku, however, attributed the crisis to unemployment but said by the time his administration in partnership with the private sector create jobs, the youths would be gainfully employed and have no time to be part of any crisis.
He also observed that all the ethnic groups within the state are inter-related either through religion, married and cultural ties and there was no reason for crisis of any form.