ACTIVITIES of a notorious gang popularly known as Sarasuka in Jos North Local Government Area of Plateau have been a source of concern to residents of the council area. And it is not a recent happening. For over a long time, the group known as a cult group often initiate youths between the age of 15 and 35 into their fold.
Sunday Tribune findings revealed that Sarasuka started as a group of political thugs working for prominent politicians in the North-Eastern part of the country, precisely in Bauchi and Gombe states, but they suddenly transformed into an independent and much -dreaded cult group.
In Plateau State, they are more visible in Jos North Local Government Area, terrorising residents of the entire area where they are domiciled. Apart from attacking innocent people, they often engage in shows of supremacy, thus constituting themselves into a threat to the fragile peace in the local government.
A resident of Zololo in the council area who identified himself as Danladi Ibrahim commended the state government and Operation Safe Haven, the anti-crime security body set up by the state government, for the prevailing peace in the state but quickly added that the only remaining security threat in the once troubled council is the activities of the Sarasuka gang .
According to him, the gang recently disrupted traffic flow along the major Bauchi highway and paralysed business activities for close to three hours following in-fighting among members of the gang, adding that some innocent citizens who ran into the melee sustained various degrees of injuries.
These activities of the gang had therefore prompted the Operation Safe Haven and the state government to sit at a roundtable to discuss possible ways out of the problem.
After a series of meetings and brainstorming, it was decided that the matter would not be approached with force but by appealing to reason and conscience of the individuals in the gang. Those who were ready to renounce the group were encouraged to do so and promised to be empowered to make them self-reliant
Commander of OPSH, Major General Augustine Agundu, during the inauguration of the empowerment programme for the repentant Sarasuka members, said no fewer than 500 members of the gang had surrendered and renounced their membership of the group, adding that 60 of them were selected for a pilot scheme training in various vocations at the Leadership and Training Centre, Shere Hills, Plateau State.
General Agundu said the aim of the programme was to provide them with community leadership training, security awareness, skills and empowerment in order to properly reintegrate them into their communities.
“OPSH observed that the plight of the large group youth population has remained inimical to full actualisation of our mandate. The youths have been misguided and misused over a long period of time such that indulgence in varying social vices has become a norm.
“Most worrisome is the negative effect of the push-pull factor in the society just as peer pressure is seen as an attraction to indulgence in unwholesome activities. Unfortunately, parents and guardians have relinquished their roles such that street life has replaced the social status of a family. Such hopeless situation encourages the committal of crime and criminality,” he said.
He challenged well-meaning citizens to stand up and be counted as advocates for peaceful coexistence and change agents, adding that society could change the course of history through purposeful community relations that target youth re-orientation towards a productive future.
To make the repentant Sarasuka members productive, Major General Agundu said business concerns had been established for them and also to make them employers of labour in no distant time.
He enjoined the repentant Sarasuka members to be of good behaviour and also be a reference point to those yet to renounce their membership, charging them to toe the path of peace and shun violence.
“In the course of your training here, you will be trained in community leadership, skills acquisition, empowerment and security alertness. The fund for this programme is provided by the Plateau State government, you are to reciprocate the gesture by becoming genuinely repentant and turn a new leaf.
“You are also expected to use what you will learn here to preach to others by telling them that violence does no one any good. After your training, you are to serve as community watch and my candid advice to you is to abstain from anything that can lead you astray and destroy your future,” he advised.
Sunday Tribune learnt that the three-week rehabilitation and empowerment programme has changed the orientation and stereotype of the former Sarasuka boys as many of them agreed that they would never get involved in criminal activities again.
In his remarks during the graduation ceremony of the participants, Commander, Sector 1 OPSH, Colonel Emmanuel Karau, who monitored the participants throughout of the training, said the repentant Sarasuka members went through three weeks of intensive training that was expected to shape their perceptions about life and make them live responsibly.
One of the repentant Sarasuka members, Abdullahi Shehu, who spoke with Sunday Tribune commended the OPSH for its efforts to make them see the reason to lead a useful life, adding that he was a drug addict and loved street fight before he repented.
“I am appealing to those who are yet to repent to do so before it is too late. In the course of the training, I learnt barbing and with the barbing equipment provided by OPSH, I am set to start on my own and as well train others. I now realised that it is good and profitable to engage in a productive venture,” he said.
Another repentant Sarasuka member who did not want his name in print said he was going into the community to be an ambassador of peace and agent of social change, adding that with the three weeks rehabilitation and skills acquisition programme over, he was ready to be reintergrated into his community.
Most of the parents of the repentant Sarasuka members who witnessed the graduation ceremony thanked the OPSH for reorientation of their chidren and integrating them back into the communities as responsible citizens while calling on others yet to surrender to have a rethink.
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