Mercenaries were engaged to kill my people — Gwankat

Sir Joseph Gwankat is the National President of the Mwaghavul Development Association. In this interview by ISAAC SHOBAYO, he speaks on the recent killings in Mangu Local Government Area of Plateau State where over 100 people, mostly women and children, were murdered by gunmen, among other security issues.

What is your assessment of the recent attack in Mangul Local Government Area about 100 were killed by gunment?

The attack took place in the middle of the night, which is when you meet people at the weakest point of their lives, and that is why the causality figure is very high. More so, the gunmen, as they are often called, are mercenaries hired for the deadly operation. They are not the Fulani within the area. Their mode of operation during the attack was strange. They used sophisticated weapons. After the  attack on Fungzai and Kubwat, they also attacked other surrounding villages. The attack was extended to places like Dunma, Murish, Mai-Tumbi and Kantoma. All houses in these places were burnt down. Most of the the inhabitants had left for safer places like Mangu town. The ugly development has become a huge burden on us because quite a lot of people have been displaced, apart from those that were brutally murdered. We have to take care of these people who are mostly women and children, including the elderly. All those who sustained gunshot wounds are receiving treatment at the Mangu General Hospital and other places within the local government. The attack also spread to Panyam and Pushit. As I talk to you, these assailants are still burning houses. This morning, I was told they had entered Jin. If you go to most of these places, you will see people trying to move their belongings out of those places. A lot of the people who have been displaced are now at the Mangu Local Government secretariat, as well as churches. The casualty figure is high. We are still counting. On Tuesday, we gave 81 of the victims a mass burial.

But prior to this time, there had been pockets of attacks around Mangu Local Government Area. At what point did you lose track of their plans and activities?

I don’t quite understand the forces behind this attack because when a young man was killed in April by a group of Fulani and there was a reprisal, we did all we could to prevent it from spreading. It was curtailed; if not, it could have spread to other parts of the local government. We have been having a series of meetings with the traditional ruler of the land, Mushkaham Mwaghavul Da, John Putmang Hirse, the Ardos and Miyetti Allah, including CAN and JNI, presided over by our royal father, to see that we live in peace with one another. But all of a sudden, there was an attack in Kubwat and Fungzai. It came as a shock to us because Mangu is known to be a peaceful local government in the state. We are accommodating. There are people from different parts of the country in the local government doing their legitimate businesses. I still cant understand why this is happening at this time. The major occupation of our people is farming and this has been disrupted by this attack.

What is your suspicion concerning this attack?

I cannot eliminate the factor of mercenaries, my reason being that we have lived peacefully with the Fulanis in this local government over the years. We have intermarried and we know what each and every person can do. I strongly believe that some outsiders were hired for this deadly operation because sophisticated weapons were used during the attack, which was well coordinated. So, it must have been carried out by people highly trained for such mercenary operations.

What will be the fate of farmers displaced as a result of this attack?

The timing is very important. This is a planting season, and certain crops like the Irish potato need to be planted at the beginning of the rainy season. So, with this attack, we cannot plant Irish potato again because all the farmers have deserted their farms. The attack was carried out with the sole aim of disrupting our livelihood.

What is your assessment of the security operation in the affected communities in the past few days?

If they had had enough men, the situation would not have been as serious as we are experiencing. At our meeting with the heads of security agencies in the state on Wednesday, I asked them if we had a government in place in the first instance. No one can be stronger than the government. The proactiveness of the government would have mitigated the situation, and we wouldn’t have had this kind of killing. Now there is the problem of catering for the displaced people. NEMA and SEMA have come but they have yet to bring anything.

What are your fears going forward?

A hungry man is an angry man. Anything can happen. Concerning those who lost their lives, got injured or displaced, we cannot get an accurate figure for now. We need a committee for the inventory, and that is not possible for now because the whole place is still tense. Even the mass burial was done at risk. We want the government to live up to its responsibility as far as human lives are concerned. After God and government, no one has the authority to take a person’s life. We have not done anything to these people. We have been magnanimous enough to accommodate them. I am tempted to believe that the attack was a ploy to take over our land, which we will never surrender under any circumstances.