Southern Kaduna indigenes condemn police chief’s comments on crisis

Indigenes of Southern Kaduna have faulted the comments of the state’s Commissioner of Police (CP), Agyole Abeh, whom they alleged have downplayed the severity and casualty figures recorded in the killings by Fulani herdsmen.

A statement yesterday by the Chairman of Southern Kaduna Unity and Peace Forum (SKUPF), Dr. Daniel Kafwoi Bobai, said, among others: “It is with shock and consternation that we observed the rigorous efforts of Kaduna State Commissioner of Police (CP), Mr. Agyole Abeh, to denigrate and downplay the endemic evil that has engulfed Southern Kaduna since April last year.

“Abeh has put on a concerted campaign in the print and electronic media last week to say that the casualty figures in the ongoing genocide against native people of Southern Kaduna is exaggerated and that some community leaders were benefitting from the mass slaughter of their people and the destruction of their communities by armed herdsmen.

“This is a very unfortunate statement and in the least, very disturbing, that the man tasked with the onerous responsibility of protecting the beleaguered people of Southern Kaduna could come so low to speak in the same tune with the enemies of the place.

“In what way would this add to the confidence building our people are already beginning to have on the police? Who does the CP want to please and what does he stand to gain by stirring up an issue?

“The statements are not only infuriating to the family members of hundreds of people killed, scores maimed into disability forever, thousands of widows and widowers, scores of communities totally destroyed, it is also a very inciting statement. The depressing aspect of this is that while the communities have been able to bring the figures of those killed to over 800 last year, the police, which are statutorily supposed to give out the fatality figures, have failed to do so till date.”