The United Nation’s human rights chief, Navi Pillay, has decried the lack of security in Jos despite persistent crisis in recent times, blaming the government for Sunday’s massacre.
This has also been affirmed by the nation’s opposition party, Action Congress (AC), which accuses the federal government of hypocrisy in its reaction to the latest violence in Jos.
The office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, in a statement, said that Mrs. Pillay was appalled by the massacre of 500 villagers in the Nigerian state and urged authorities to tackle festering poverty and discrimination that fuelled sectarian violence.
Drawing a parallel between the massacre of some 500 Christian villagers near the city of Jos over the weekend, and attacks in the same city in January that left scores of people in the Muslim Fulani community dead, Mrs. Pillay stated that “in both cases, women and children and elderly people were among those who were viciously slaughtered,” in a statement just released.
She blamed the renewed crisis on the lack of adequate security saying that “after the January killings, the villages should have been properly protected,” underlining that it was the third round of violence in the Jos region in three years.
“Clearly, previous efforts to tackle the underlying causes have been inadequate, and in the meantime the wounds have festered and grown deeper”.
Thousands have been killed in recent years in conflicts in and around Jos.
Cautious reconciliation
Mrs. Pillay insisted that efforts to counter the bloodletting should not simply focus on security measures.
“Better security is clearly vital, but it would be a mistake to paint this purely as sectarian or ethnic violence and to treat it solely as a security issue,” she said.
“What is most needed is a concerted effort to tackle the underlying causes of the repeated outbreaks of ethnic and religious violence which Nigeria has witnessed in recent years, namely discrimination, poverty and disputes over land”.
Pillay said allegations that local politicians exploited the divisions must be examined to deter more bouts of violence.
Law enforcement and courts in the region must be even-handed, she warned, “to avoid stimulating new resentments, while at the same time ensuring that those responsible for these atrocious acts do not escape justice”.
AC blames government’s insincerity
The Action Congress (AC) in a statement from his national publicity secretary, Lai Muhammed, demanded that the government take concrete action to put an end to the violence.
The party stated that “with the mass burial of the victims, the issue is buried until the violence flares up again. That is why the perpetrators are encouraged to continue their dastardly act,” adding that “a few scallywags will be arrested and paraded, only to be let off the hook a few days later”.
The party urged the government to be more aggressive in arresting the perpetrators of the orgy, asserting that “the government is the problem. It has the power of arrest and prosecution. It has the ability and resources to gather intelligence. That is why we have always said the killings are more political than religious,” AC said.
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