By ZAKAA LAZARUS
The Commander of Operation WHIRL STROKE Major General Moses Kolo Gara has attributed the insecurity issues in Benue State to a negative narrative of an underground plan by some ethnic groups to dispose the Indigents of their ancestral homes and farmlands.
Major General Moses Gara made this known during an interview session with Defence Correspondent in Makurdi, Benue state.
Defence Correspondents were on a media tour in Benue and Nasarawa states respectively to provide firsthand information of operational activities of troops in the middle belt region: Excerpts.
Question :What is Operation Whirl Stroke doing to ensure that criminal elements do not regroup?
Answer: well let me start by saying that the criminalities are in different configurations, as they have different characteristics. That’s the truth. So, for the criminals on the part of the herders, as it were, a have informants, even surprisingly among the locals.
So, once our attention is not on that particular target area, they strike. Before you respond, they have dissipated. And once they drop those weapons, they become normal civilians.
Except you have intelligence. That’s the only time you can identify them.
Amongst the locals, too, I will say it on TV, that a lot of communities here, because we have evidence to back it up,they have what we call community armoury that is, the community will contributes money
to source weapons on their own, and they have a group of their youths who are supposed to be in charge of those weapons, the reason put forward is to defend their communities from being taken over, as it were so they weapons are now being used for all manner of criminalities.
And I’m not speculating. It’s something I have evidence to prove, you know, that these weapons have been employed for all manner of criminalities. And sometimes, these weapons have been sold even to others.
I’m talking about Benue now. we have Nasarawa with its own peculiarity. We have Taraba with its own peculiarity, but I must say that here in Benue State it’s a lot more complex and I think the narrative really can be attributed as being what has made it more complex. Because that narrative is what is justifying community armouries.
“Because I must speak to the issue of this narrative. I have come to realised here that there is a narrative that has permeated the society, that there is an ongoing war, that there is a deliberate plan by certain ethnic groups to come and disposed the indigents here of their ancestral land”.
“You know, so probably there have been other happenings, that I may not have all the details, that has created that deep mistrust. You know, so I have realised a lot of people have bought into that narrative, that actually there is a deliberate plan to come and disposed the locals of their land in this place here. And that narrative is making it very difficult to attain peace as it were”.
“once you have told people that they are under attack, so to speak they must rise up to try and defend themselves.,so that doesn’t help our operations.
“Because when we go to these Communities nobody wants to be the one to divulge information that will help you to recover arms from the hands of these bad guys.
“Because the whole community has come together to contribute money to put these arms in place, which are being misused, which is even wrong in the first place, so the criminalities are of different configurations. In places like Taraba, you have deep mistrust among communities.
But I think the difference I can see is that in Taraba, because this narrative of an outsider trying to come and disposed of them of land is not there. So, most times, once there are conflicts, you see they have a functional conflict resolution mechanism in a place like Taraba. Immediately from the state government, their reconciliation committee, now comes into place, call the stakeholders meeting and identify the perpetrators those ones are picked up and arrested, and that’s why sometimes the killings in Taraba cannot be more than what happens here in Benue.And it’s not about condoning, but they are able to manage all the things that are driving the conflict.
sometimes some traditional rulers in that area have been dismissed from office,, for not living up to expectation or for taking sides or decisions that have foiled conflict in one form or the other. So, that’s why you don’t get to hear Taraba so much.
Nasarawa too does not dwell on that narrative of outsiders coming to disposed them. So, they are able to focus on the crime, as the crime is happening. But here, because of that narrative, everything is being looked at from that direction.
So, even when we go out, you to rescue kidnapped victims, recover illicit weapons from criminal elements, it is being interpreted that we are disarming the locals and making them vulnerable to the outside threat that has been pointed out. So, it’s part of the complexities.
But we also hold stakeholder engagements, so that people start to understand that weapons in the hands of non-state actors that are not accountable to anybody will not bring good to anybody.
That is very important for people to know. I sit here as a force commander for any misuse of force by Operation White Stroke, I will be held accountable. Whether it be in an air platform or the naval gunboats that we have here, you know, for every use of force, I will be held accountable because I’m here under authority.
So, that’s the difference but people don’t realise that. So, sometimes, I can understand that out of fear, they defer to the criminal elements in the rural areas, you know, but the truth is that those same people that they are deferring to are the same people that are attacking them.
As I speak to you now, I have an intelligence in my hand of one criminal who said he was going to go to the market in Taraba, Piva Market in Taraba here, under the Ukari Takum, that he’s going to kill people. You know why? Because he said they’ve stopped paying him his levy. So, when he kills people in cold blood, then the officials of the market will be forced to look for him, negotiate with him, and start to pay him back his levy.
Question: we will just want you to take a look at maybe one or two areas where you think you need to highlight, particularly based on Operation Wild Stroke, the peculiar, challenges that you’ve seen.
Answer: Okay, thank you very much for that question, Let me start by making the clarification that Operation Wild Stroke is not here to replace the primary policing and law enforcement architecture that is on the ground. We are here to support.
And we are doing that under the provisions of the Constitution, which provides for military aid to civil authority. So, we have come with additional resources. So, where the primary law enforcement agencies are unable to resolve certain insecurity issues, or where there are criminal strongholds where they are not able to take them out, we come in and take them out.
But unfortunately, what I have observed generally is that a lot of people here believe that we should take on the policing role. And you agree with me that policing communities is not the same thing as military security operations. where all our mindset is about defending the integrity of this country, and then where there are specific insurgencies or terrorism, we come in and we crush it.
So, laying that background, from where you visited yesterday, the COAS Intervention Battalion, 11, Tatyough I can reliably tell you that I personally sighted that location where they are, the we went on the reconnaissance of that area, we had several encounters with harmed elders in that general area. But I insisted that the place is too close to Makurdi to have people displaced from their communities.
People must go back to their communities. And that was why immediately, the now Chief of Defence Staff, who was then as Chief of Army Staff, when he brought in the additional manpower, I moved them there and gave them a very strict mandate that the people must return back to their communities. That has been largely achieved, but there are still a few constraints, because it’s not what only the military or Operation White Stroke can do by itself.
And what I would say, the challenge is, like now, you see a lot of people trekking, going back. So, transportation into the place and out is an issue, we have raised it with the local authorities and I hope they will do something about it very soon.
We also have the issue, after we have provided the conducive environment, now the headers have been denied freedom of action. But we can’t be everywhere.these two sides, the headers and the locals, you know, there is a circle of violence that has been ongoing. And because of that, there is a need for an engagement to draw the line, in the sense that everybody seems to have a point of grievance, where they want to settle scores. You know, it’s something we have seen, we have experienced.Headers have been killed, cows killed, cows rustled. Locals have been killed on their farms and farms destroyed., so everybody has a genuine grievance, why the fight must continue, at this point, there has to be engagement. That engagement will enlighten them to reach an understanding of drawing the line, let us stop killing each other. And then a committee set up comprising both the local farmers and the headers, as the case may be, to manage their affairs.
Because we really cannot be everywhere. It’s not possible. Guma alone, and I think it’s one of the largest local governments, has been wasted. Guma is just one area. Agatu is there, Gwer West is there, then you have the Sankara axis, where we are talking about Ukum, Logo and Katina Ala, close to the Taraba boundary is also there. They are all problematic areas.
