Before Jang gave the advise, the apex pan Igbo socio- cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, had despatched a letter to the South-East Governors’ Forum, seeking urgent measures to stop the killing of Igbo traders in Jos.
It was learnt that the latest violence in Jos erupted when an STF team escorting some ad hoc staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission to St. Philip Academy in Nasarawa, Jos North LGA, were challenged by youths in the area.
The youths in the Christian-dominated LGA, who had in the past accused the STF of aiding attacks on them, were said to have felt that the task force team was escorting Hausa youths to their area.
They were said to have quickly mobilised and descended on the STF members and INEC ad hoc staff.
The Commissioner of Police, Plateau State Command, Mr. Abdulrahaman Akano, and the STF Commander, Brig. Gen Hassan Umaru, confirmed the incident
Akano said, “The youths started throwing stones at the soldiers on sighting them. They held one of the Hausa Fulani boys the soldiers were escorting. The rampaging youths killed the boy but a soldier opened fire in defense and in the process, one of the youths was killed.”
Umaru, who said he had appealed to the youths in the state to give peace a chance, added that the incident disrupted voter registration in the area.
He said, “They started throwing stones at my men just because they saw them escorting INEC ad hoc staff that are Hausa Muslims. This happened in spite of my appeal to all the youths in the state to give peace a chance.”
The state governor had, while receiving a delegation of Ndigbo ezes (traditional rulers) in the 19 Northern states and Abuja, said he had spoken with President Goodluck Jonathan on the lingering violence in Jos and its environs.
While assuring that drastic measures would soon be taken against the perpetrators of the clashes, he advised residents to defend themselves when attacked by anyone.
“When your enemy knows that you are prepared to defend yourself, he will definitely not come to attack you. There is this old saying that the best way to defend yourself is to attack. Even if we bring the whole of the Nigerian military to Jos, they will not be enough to defend the people,” he told the delegation led by the Ezes, who were led by their chairman, Eze Ibe Nwosu.
“My advice is that people should be prepared to defend themselves so that if your enemy knows that you are prepared; look me I look you kind, we will say to ourselves, old boy, why not relax,” the governor said.
Nwosu told Jang that despite the killing of their kinsmen, the Igbo would not be forced to abandon their places of abode and flee to the South-East.
He, however, warned that there was a limit to which the Igbo community could continue to exercise patience.
They had earlier visited the Gbong Gwom Jos, Da Gyang Buba, who recalled that the Nigerian civil war started just with little skirmishes.
Meanwhile, Ohanaeze Ndigbo has expressed concern over the killing of ‘innocent Igbo traders’ in Plateau State.
The organisation, in a letter to the South-East governors, sought an urgent measures, to stop the killings.
The letter was signed by its President-General, Ambassador Ralph Uwaechue measure and addressed to Anambra State Governor and Chairman of the South-East Governors Forum, Mr. Peter Obi.
It reads in part: “We have all heard with great concern of the brutal and intensified massacre of innocent Igbo traders in Plateau State, as the latest episode involving over 40 lives is but an escalation of earlier attacks and destruction of Igbo life and property.
“It is clearly timed to take serious measures to put an end to this recurrent, dastardly exercise. I will appreciate an early communication, possibly a meeting with Your Excellency in Awka, to strategise on what Ohanaeze and our governors could do.”
Uwaechue also disclosed that Ohanaeze had, in the same vein, written the Council of Traditional Rulers in Igbo land through the Traditional Ruler of Awka, Anambra State, Gibson Nwosu, calling for collaboration to stop killings in Jos.
Also on Monday, the Igbo Youth Movement, released the names of nine of the killed traders and warned that it could carry out a reprisal measure if the attacks on the Igbo continued in Jos.
“Igbo have lost several lives in Plateau since the crises erupted in 2008. But the last round of crisis is a clear indication that Igbo are now the targets for such brutal and inhuman killings,” the IYM President, Rev. Elliot Ukoh, said.
He, however, advised that measures be put in place “to check such killings because Igbo youths may not tolerate it if it happens again.”
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