The Governor of Plateau state and chairman of the northern governor’s forum, Simon Lalong has said that citizens must all rise in unity against criminals or be ready to become victims on the long run.
Lalong said this while addressing the quarterly stakeholders meeting at the Nigeria Inter-Religious Council NIREC in Abuja on Thursday 26th August 2021.
Lalong said it was an avenue for continuous engagement between adherents of the two major faiths in Nigeria, Christianity and Islam. he said he was using the opportunity to call on the leadership of NIREC to again step up its sensitization among adherents of the two religions by engaging the clergy on the need to avoid sermons and comments that attempt to justify crimes.
The Plateau state Governor noted that the nation is still grappling with challenges of insecurity that are multi-faceted and remain a major threat to the peace and stability of the country.
He said
Our security forces have continued to put in their best which is yet to bring to an end to the ugly situation at moment.
“While we blame lack of equipment, adequate funding, low manpower, over-streched personnel, proper training among others for the inability of our forces to quickly overcome the level of insecurity, we must also look at other factors such as the role of the citizens and engagement in crime prevention and crisis management”
“The situation where crimes are given religious, ethnic or political colouration rather than total condemnation is very worrisome. Sometimes, criminals find it easy to simply shield themselves within this cover and either escape or be emboldened to commit more crime”
The past weeks in Plateau State have been very challenging as we have witnessed the resurgence of attacks on innocent citizens leading to the loss of many lives and destruction of properties. While we continue to take security measures to deal with the criminals, such attacks are easily given ethnic or religious colouration.
Such unfortunate narratives tend to overshadow the criminal conduct as some try to brand a whole ethnic or religious group either as culprits or victims. This further fuels tensions and passions among sympathisers of either faith or ethnic group, leading to more unrest. The criminals use this advantage to hide, escape and become more audacious to commit more crimes.
This is why even yesterday, we had to reinstate a 24-hour curfew on Jos North Local Government after the attacks that took place in Yelwa Zangam village of that Local Government where many people were gruesomely murdered and properties destroyed. We took that decision in order to prevent criminals from taking advantage of the situation to loot and begin to target places of worship and other facilities.
As religious, traditional and political leaders, we must work hard to provide the leadership that guides people to isolate crimes from religious, ethnic or political affiliations. After all, no religion promotes hate, killing, kidnapping, stealing, destruction and intolerance. It is only when we treat criminals as criminals that we can overcome the level of insecurity we are facing in Nigeria today.
It is rather unfortunate and highly disappointing that some religious leaders and their followers use the pulpit to incite, provoke and propagate hate, reprisals, as well as attempt to justify the actions of criminals rather than condemn it. Let me again reiterate that crime has no religion, tribe or ethnicity. Rather, evidence has shown that criminals unite across these lines to plan and execute their evil plans. It is when they are apprehended and being brought to justice that their sponsors play the ethno-religious card to curry sympathy for them and seek to set them free.
Unfortunately, we have seen that some of those propagating inciting messages and fanning toxic ideas are people outside our State. They sit far away with little or no knowledge of what is happening to push out narratives that further escalate the situation and embolden criminals. These kinds of people must be fished out and made to face the law. We have mandated the security agencies to ensure they go after them.
Again, I want to draw our attention to the negative use of social media which is being exploited to create panic, spread hate and incite people. In fact, we have seen people glorifying or justifying crime in the social media space. I call on the regulatory bodies as well as well-meaning Nigerians to rise up to the occasion and deal with the matter.
Let me again thank you for the opportunity to speak at this forum and urge you to pray for Plateau State as we are doing everything possible to address the situation. We are isolating the few criminals that want to return our State to the days of agony and we shall deal with them. In all the recent attacks, arrests have been made and justice will be done. Plateau is still the Home of Peace and Tourism and welcomes everyone with good intentions.