Group backs Senate call to intensify search for missing Army General

THE New Initiative for Credible Leadership (NICreL), a civil society orgnisation has welcomed the recent call by the Nigerian Senate on the federal government to set up an investigative panel and intensify efforts to find Major General Idris Alkali (retired).

The group said the call for other Nigerians that have gone missing around the Dura-Du axis of Plateau State, where the Nigerian Army has recovered the general’s car and other personal effects in a pond was a welcome development.

NICreL said it was taken aback that it took Senator Mohammed Hassan of Yobe South Senatorial District to raise the motion that led to Senate’s call while the three Senators from Plateau state, who should be helping with investigations into the discoveries at the pond, were mute on the atrocities committed in their state.

The group through its National President, Rev Samson Onwu, wondered why Senator Jonah Jang, representing Plateau North Senatorial District to which Dura-Du has maintained closed lips on the development.

According to him, “Beyond previously threatening to render the state ungovernable on account of losing out in the power play and provoking crisis to stave off his trial for corruption, Senator Jang has been named by several groups and persons as inciting Beroms of Plateau state to target other ethnic nationalities for killing.

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“The missing general and the discoveries in the pond at Dura-Du are outcomes of these incitements. It has been reported that several high ranking persons, including the Gbong Gwom Jos, Da Jacob Gyang Buba, are colluding with Senator Jonah Jang either through actively contributing to inciting youths in the constituency or engaging in a conspiracy of silence while Nigerians commuting through the axis are killed and thrown into the pond.

“We urge any investigative panel of enquiry set up by the federal government in response to the Senate’s demand investigate and probe Senator Jang, Gbong Gwom Jos and any other person of interest connected to the pond at Dura-Du. The panel must also find out what other locations are holding the bodies of other Nigerians that have been killed while they were in transit through Plateau state.

“NICreL appeals to the Senate not to allow itself to be distracted from getting to the root of what happened to General Alkali and the numerous disappeared commuters along the Dura-Du axis in the past few years since we are aware that there was pressure mounted on Senators not to intervene in the development because one of their colleagues has been named in connection with the matter.

“The bold step taken by the Senate in demanding an investigation is commendable and we reassured by the several investigations that the legislature has handled in the past because we know the killings at Dura-Du would not become an exception to blemish the record of the Senate. Lawmakers must be empathic in demanding corresponding sanctions for anyone found culpable in the killing of Nigerians dumped in the pond.”