It is now evidently clear that the Nigerian media do not give a damn about the plight of Hausa/Fulani who have been penciled and are being eliminated by the Berom militia. This conclusion is arrived at in view of the fact that the media tend to amplify and sustain reportage of any misdemeanor linked to the Hausa/Fulani and downplay, underreport and misinform their audiences whenever they are the victims of atrocities being perpetrated by the so-called minority tribes of northern Nigeria.
For almost two decades, the Berom militias of the Jos plateau have been wasting human lives, mostly of Hausa/Fulani and other Muslims, using the advantage of their strategic geographical location by the roads leading to Jos city for commuters from central and southern parts of the state and Abuja for all commuters from northeast plying their territories en route to Abuja. From 2001 to date, there was never a year unsuspecting travelers from Bauchi, Gombe, Adamawa, Yobe and Borno states and those from Plateau’s Jos North, Barikin Ladi, Wase, Kanam, Shendam and Mangu local governments have not been killed or maimed within the Berom dominated areas. Most of the murders by the militias are committed clandestinely without notice of the security operatives posted to the volatile area to keep peace.
Flabbergasting as it sounds, the Berom militia have over these years enjoyed some sort of overstretched latitude with men of Operation Safe Haven (OSH), which in turn gives them to guts to turn every Muslim traveling to Abuja from the north east or to Jos from central and southern parts of Plateau to a game. With the coming of Jonah Jang as governor in 2007, the Berom militias’ activities heightened, living no one in doubt that they must have been enjoying some backing from the state government. This was further justified with the mounting of ‘Operation Rainbow’, a state funded and an Israeli trained and coordinated “security” outfit, which the former governor said it was established to checkmate security challenges at the community level.
Adding credence to the claim that the militias may well have received training courtesy of the then state government, the member representing Wase Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives and member of the Transition Committee that ushered the present government of Simon Lalong to power, Hon. Ahmed Idris alleged on the floor of the Green Chamber that about 300 youths were trained in Israel by the Jonah Jang administration. Hon. Idris added, to the consternation of his colleagues that four trailers containing concealed items suspected to be arms disappeared in the air and that upon investigation, their committee discovered that the trailers were traced to the house of “a highly placed politician” in Plateau state.
At a time when Nigerians’ lives are lost in dozens on almost daily basis along Riyom-Mararraban Jama’a-Anguldi road on one hand and Barikin Ladi-Heipang-Kassa-Du road on the other, it amounts to approval of the killings by security agencies and the Nigerian media for such hefty and mind-blowing allegations to have been ignored without thorough investigation to unravel their substance or otherwise. It is no news that youths from Du, Fan, Forom, Zawan, Inding, Heipang and a host of other Berom communities located along the roads where these killings are perfected wield all manner of assault rifles unhindered with pride.
Shouldn’t the media be unbiased in their reportage of the happenings in all parts of the country? It is disheartening that members of the Fourth Estate of the Realm and their organisations, who should set the agenda for citizens and the country about pressing national concerns as the cannibalism being normalised in Plateau state have conspired to keep mute. It took the ‘grace’ of the disappearance of the missing Gen. Idris Alkali for the world to know the stuff these Berom militias are made of. The pond of death recently discovered by the Nigerian Army is just one among dozen others sparsely located in their domain. Anyone familiar with the Berom dominated areas will attest to the fact that there are countless other ponds, perhaps of death also, courtesy of mining activities which hold water year round.
What baffles one at the moment is a somewhat grand conspiracy of silence by the Nigerian media to not trail and report the discovery and further developments emerging from that Duru-Du pond of death out of which the military have so far recovered three cars including that of the missing retired general. According to divers helping the military with the search, there may be other items in the pond as the water is still being drained.
What about those women who protested the drainage of the pond in the first instance in black and almost clad outfits? Isn’t it obvious that they knew what their husbands and children dumped in the pond and so they attempted to stop the military from draining, using spiritual reasons as cover? Does anyone need to be told that they must have been sponsored by the “highly placed” politicians who have been accused of stockpiling arms in their houses for God-knows-why?
The Nigerian media should not throw responsibility to the bin and must wake up to it by unearthing the cans of worms that are hidden by the merchants of death in Plateau and elsewhere, for it is only on that basis that they can prove to the world that they are not championing a grand conspiracy of silence against victims of Berom militias’ atrocities.
Written by Tanimu Gambo.
