326 dead in Jos crisis, say Police

Source: The Nation Newspaper Published:Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

Nigeria Police

No fewer than 326 people may have died in the Jos mayhem, acting Plateau State Police Commissioner Ikechukwu Aduba said yesterday.

The police have arrested 303 suspects in connection with the violence that gripped the one-time tourist and mining town that has become a hot bed of sectarian fighting. Of those arrested, 139 have been taken to Abuja, for questioning.

Aduba said more suspects remained at large, including those who took part in killings that nearly wiped out a small village on the southern outskirts of Jos. Volunteers there discovered bodies shoved into communal wells and sewer dumps. Others lay dead in the bush outside the village, victims of gunshot and machete wounds.

Aduba also promised those arrested would face trial in Jos. The state government has complained that those involved in previous riots later made bail in Abuja and never faced justice.

There are conflicting accounts about what caused the recent bloodshed. According to a state police commissioner, skirmishes began after Muslim youths set a Christian church ablaze, but Muslim leaders denied that. Muslims say it began with an argument over the rebuilding of a Muslim home in a predominantly Christian neighborhood that had been destroyed in November, 2008.

The state government reacted yesterday to allegations that it was not prosecuting suspects of previous crisis. It blamed it all on the Federal Government, which controls the police, who are saddled with the responsibility of investigations.

Speaking at a media briefing in Jos, the state capital, the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr Edward Pwajok, said one week after the recent crisis, no case file had been sent to the ministry for legal advice or prosecution by the police.

This, he said, is in addition to the painstaking efforts by the public prosecution department of the ministry, which has been meeting with the police who are in custody of these files, but to no avail.

Said Pwajok: "We are disturbed because after the November 2008 crisis, all the over 300 files that had been processed and based upon which remand orders were obtained in the courts, were taken to Force Headquarters,

Abuja and in spite of repeated demands, no file was returned to Jos, thus leading to the release of all the suspects of the 2008 Jos unrest."

Surprisingly, he added, while the Justice ministry is awaiting the release of the case files of suspects of the recent crisis, upon inquiries, "it has emerged that the case files and suspects may have been transferred to Abuja"

Pwajok recalled that all the 26 suspects arrested in the wake of the 2008 crisis on suspicion of being mercenaries were taken from Jos to Abuja and nothing has been heard from the Force Headquarters since last year.

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