MURIC tasks police on insecurity, killings

The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) has charged the Inspector General of Police to ensure that the 13 suspects arrested in connection with missing Major General Idris Alkali (rtd) in Jos are prosecuted.

The Director of the human rights group, Professor Ishaq Akintola, in a statement said: “The police must speedily, diligently and meticulously prosecute the suspects. Not only that, the sponsors must be fished out, identified, arrested and prosecuted. Those thirteen suspects are mere pawns in the hands of powerful sponsors. They are the symptoms, not the disease. It is the sponsors who are behind the illegal smuggling of arms into Plateau State and the killing of Muslims and Fulanis.

“The blood-letting will continue even with the incarceration of these few men unless the sponsors are dealt with. There must be no sacred cows. The failure to apprehend sponsors behind the Plateau mayhem has been responsible for its continuity. Now is the time to be assertive. The investigation must be comprehensive.He advised the government of Plateau State to steer clear of the current investigations.

Akintola urged the Federal Government to show interest in the case. ‘It is beyond the murder of an army general. The fact that other vehicles and corpses were found under the pool of death is enough to prove that the killing has been going on for years. It is time for government to conjure the political will to deal with the situation.

“It is beyond the murder of a Muslim army general. Everything points at premeditated murder of persons belonging to the Fulani extraction and Muslims of any tribe at all. The Beroms have murdered Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, Kanuri, Edo Muslims, etc. No civilized nation will stomach such atrocity and no serious central government will abdicate its responsibility in this respect,” he said

Akintola appealed to the Federal Government to order the draining of other ponds within the vicinity of the Dura-Du Pond of Death because there is every reason to believe that many vehicles, decomposing bodies and skeletons of murdered Muslim travelers will still be lying under Berom ponds.

“Nigerian Muslims are prepared to live in peace with their Christian neighbours but there must be assurance that Muslims are safe to traverse the length and breadth of this great country. Government must take every necessary action to protect Muslim travelers particularly from merciless killers, terrorists and cannibals in our midst. The starting point is ensuring that the sponsors of these killers are exposed and prosecuted. Those found guilty must face the full wrath of the law”, he said.

Akintola charged the Nigerian Police to prosecute the 13 suspects handed over by the army. “We also urge the police and other security agencies to dig deeper. The sponsors of the bloodthirsty killers must be identified, arrested and prosecuted. The case goes beyond a murdered army general. It is a case of massacre, ethnic cleansing and systematic elimination of Muslim travelers over a long period.

“The Plateau state government is suspected of active connivance. Federal Government must therefore intervene and ensure the protection of Muslim travelers particularly in Berom territory”, he said.