Indigenous Communities In Danger Of Territorial Conquest Plateau State Governor Unveils Plans Behind Recent Attacks

Gov. Caleb Mutfwang, Plateau State Governor, has explained in a Media chat what he believed was the focus of the calculated attacks on the farming communities under the disguise of farmer-herder conflict.

The governor believed the consistency in the attacks was brought about to disperse the land dwellers away by terrorizing those communities which will affect economic productivity and make the territory inhabitable, “The pattern is too consistent to be random. Whenever it’s time for planting, violence erupts. It’s a deliberate move to stop people from returning to their farms. This is about destroying the economy and taking over the land,” he also put down the narrative of the farmer-herder conflict “I have challenged the narrative of farmer-herder clash. Since coming on board, I’ve found that it’s nothing but trash. It’s a façade to continue with organised criminality to ensure people do not cultivate their farms,”
Governor Caleb also believed that such instances of clashes were used to launch an attack to further the land grabbing agenda, according to him such clashes were exaggerated and taken out of proportion, “People try to claim it’s about cattle rustling, but you don’t wipe out a village because three cows were stolen,”

The Governor revealed his intentions to implement Community based security team who will Combat these insurgents which he believed was the only visible option, “We need the power to protect our people. Security must be community-based, and that is only possible through state policing,”

The governor revealed that some of the local farmers in the state were originally Fulani herdsmen who settles in some communities “Some of them have become fantastic farmers. And herding is not exclusive to the Fulani. Many were actually hired by locals to look after cows.” He believed that the way forward in his administration was to embrace the differences in Christian and Muslim festivities, “These may look intangible, but they form the bedrock for development. Without citizen belief and participation, you cannot drive transformation,”