A call has gone out to the Federal Government to end what was reffered to as “the persistent violence, characterised by targeted attacks on communities, massacres and mass abductions”. Acting under the aegis of Civic Coalition Against Mass Atrocities in the Middle Belt, it the perpetrators had emptied entire communities and set about replacing them with imported settlers.
Barr. Gloria Ballason, Convener of the 22 civic coalition, while briefing newsmen in Kaduna, called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the Federal Government to prioritise the constitutional mandate for the security and welfare of the people.
Said she: “We remain committed to supporting initiatives that promote peace, justice, and accountability in Nigeria and are ready to collaborate with authorities both in providing the body of evidence that informs our positions and in implementing sustainable solutions to this political crisis with profound humanitarian consequences”.
The group demanded an urgent meeting of the Governors of the States of the Middle Belt to define and adopt a coordinated regional security strategy and to ensure all lands forcibly seized and occupied by terrorists and belligerents were returned to the autochthonous communities across Nigeria.
It equally demanded an urgent meeting of the Governors of the border States of northern Nigeria to address the root causes of the crises.
Stated the Convener: “We urge the Presidency to not only direct the security agencies to return displaced people and communities to their lands, but also provide the executive and political backing to discharge this responsibility to prevent the sabotaging of Government’s directives in this regard.
“Develop and deploy an integrated intelligence framework that combines local knowledge from community members with technical intelligence capabilities of security agencies, ensuring that preventive action can be taken before attacks occur”.
She decried the “intentional destruction of cultural heritage as war crime”, saying that “in the last administration, particularly in Kaduna State under Governor Nasir el-Rufai, Chiefdoms such as the Adara chiefdom were scrapped, the identities of people and communities were illegally changed, chiefs were deposed by executive fiat for no justifiable reasons, as whole communities now exist as non-people. These injustices need to be addressed and reversed”.
She called on the judiciary to demonstrate unwavering commitment to justice by ensuring swift, transparent trials for perpetrators of violence, stressing that courts must serve as deterrents by imposing appropriate penalties that reflect the gravity of the crimes against humanity.
