Solomon Dalung, a former Youth and Sports Minister in the former President Buhari administration, has stated that the recent murders in Plateau State’s Bokkos Local Government Area (LGA) should be classified as acts of terrorism and genocide rather than farmer-herder conflicts.
Dalung made this statement on Monday, April 7, while appearing on Arise TV. Mislabeling violent attacks as ethnic or communal conflicts, he contended, minimizes the gravity of the situation and the motivations behind it.
“One major issue on the Plateau is mislabelling criminals based on ethnic identities or community relations,” Dalung said. “The violence here isn’t a farmer-herder conflict; it’s terrorism. These groups have an enclave similar to those in the Northeast, where they steal cattle, seize land and establish a parallel government in the bush.”
His comments came in response to a recent wave of attacks in parts of Plateau State.
The Bokkos Cultural Development Council (BCDC) reports that more than ten people were killed Wednesday night by suspected bandits. The number of fatalities increased to 52 by Saturday. Only a week had passed since the most recent massacre when another attack in a nearby community took place.
“There is nothing like herder-farmer clashes on the Plateau. These are terrorists. They have enclaves. They grab land, wrestle cattle, and displace natives. In the bush, there is a government, and these places are known.”Dalung said
Dalung criticized the way the federal government handled the situation, claiming that the recent creation of a Ministry of Livestock was a pointless diversion.
“Let us not be hiding about the Ministry of Livestock. Ministry of Livestock cannot even do anything about this problem. If you sum up this, you will come back to this issue of lack of political will. If the political will to deal with the situation is there, these people will be given their rightful designation. They are terrorists.”
He further debunked excuses given by security operatives over poor accessibility to affected communities.
“The security said, well, we couldn’t do anything because there are no access roads. I couldn’t fathom that because in a technologically-driven economy like ours, would the issue be that of access roads? What happened to drones, cameras, and other sophisticated gadgets of intelligence gathering?”
Dalung warned that continued failure to label the crisis accurately would embolden the perpetrators and leave vulnerable communities unprotected.
“If we must be very honest in dealing with the Plateau situation, first, we will have to stop pretending that it is herder-farmers’ clashes. Not at all. It is terrorism. It is genocidal because it has met the international definition of genocide. When a group of people attack another group with the intention of wiping them off the face of the earth, it is genocide. When you employ a policy of starvation to wipe a community or a group of people, it’s genocide.
