By Yusuf Aminu Idegu
Residents of Jos, the Plateau State capital, have been suffering in silence from the activities of criminals who have invaded the city like a plague in recent months. Our correspondent, YUSUF AMINU IDEGU, xrays the prevailing security situation in the Tin City.
The Plateau State Command of the Nigerian Police Force (NPF) and gangs of cultists and gunmen are engaged in a supremacy battle in Jos, the capital of Plateau State. The supremacy war is all about the control of the soul of the capital city. So far, it is not certain that the police, with all the weapons in their arsenal, are winning the war. While the police appear to be in control in the day time, the cultists appear to gain the upper hand at night. The city once reputed for a vibrant night life has since yielded ground to gunmen and all manner of cult groups who are now firmly in charge in the dark hours.
The cool weather at evening and night times, which once made it a destination point for tourists, is fast becoming a nightmare to residents. The situation in the last six months has vastly changed the attractive features of the Home of Peace and Tourism. Every morning in the last six months comes with scary tales of the activities of cultists and gun-trotting hoodlums in one part of the city or the other with the result that residents’ hearts are left to bounce like football. It is basic knowledge for most residents of the city that it is no longer safe to move about at night. Consequently, they now live in a sort of self-imposed curfew. Residents of the once socially vibrant city are now left to rush to bed as early as 8 pm. The alternative to not doing so can be costly.
As a matter of fact, the criminals who used to terrorise the villages and were often described by security agents as ‘unknown gunmen’ appear to have moved their base from the villages to Jos city. A resident of Dadin Kowa suburb in Jos, Abel Gomina, said: “These criminals have been operating in a manner that made residents doubt if there is a police headquarters in Jos. They target private car owners. If they ask you to stop and hand over your car and you resist, they will shoot you dead and go with your car. Several innocent people have lost their lives to these criminals who take control of the city as from 7:30 pm every day.”
The insecurity in Jos actually became noticeable about two years ago, mainly due then to the activities of members of various secret cults. In recent times, however, the situation has degenerated in a manner that gun-trotting criminals are now found in every nook and cranny of the city. Just three weeks ago in Dadin Kowa, right at the centre of Jos, a young man who runs a supermarket and POS banking facility was robbed and killed by gunmen. Unknown to the victim, he was being trailed by his assailants. As soon as he closed his shop at 9 pm and started going home in his private vehicle, the gunmen trailed him right to the gate of his house. As he alighted from the car and made to open his gate, he was gunned down and left in a pool of blood. His wife and neighbours, who heard the gunshots, came out later to find him lying dead.
The victim was buried the next day. Before the Dadin Kowa incident, another shop owner at Zaramaganda junction along Bukuru Road was attacked in a similar manner. He relived his experience thus: “I had closed my shop and parked my bags and family into my car to go home and rest, but some boys, who apparently had been waiting for me to close shop, accosted me. “They pointed a gun to my head and asked me to surrender all the day’s sales to them. I did, but they felt what I gave was not enough, so they decided to abduct one of my kids, but my wife resisted and grabbed the child they wanted to take away. “But while they were dragging my child with my wife, the gunmen feared that they were going to attract a crowd. In anger, they shot at my wife twice and fled in their car. Luckily for me, the bullets only caught my wife in the waist.
“They had aimed her belly, but God directed the bullets to her waist. They went right down her right hip and passed out through her buttocks.” The woman, he said, was still receiving treatment for the gunshot wounds at the Airforce Hospital in Jos. “If not for my wife’s bravery, the gunmen would have gone away with my child and demand for ransom after robbing me of a huge sum,” he added. About a month ago too, at another provision shop located on Tudunwada Ring Road in Jos, three gunmen parked their car responsibly by the roadside, entered the shop, locked the door and ordered the shop owner to lie down at gun point. While the shop owner was lying down, the gunmen picked all the sales proceeds available, including recharge cards and other valuable items. After gathering all they wanted, they ordered the shop owner to accompany them to a waiting car and zoomed off before he could raise the alarm.
The same group of criminals proceeded to State Low-cost Housing Estate where they robbed another shop. But luck ran out on them at Low-cost estate. Although they succeeded in shooting the shop owner dead, the sound of the gunshot attracted some vigilante youths who were watching football nearby. When the criminals noticed that the boys were coming towards them, they rushed back into their car in a bid to escape. However, one of them was not fast enough, so the car zoomed off and left him behind. When the vigilante men noticed that it was a robbery operation, they gave the other member of the gang a hot chase. He decided to drop his pistol, thinking that those who were chasing him would be distracted by it, but they simply picked up the gun the gun, shot at him and left him to die there.” In the past few years, cult activities have been noticed in Jos North Local Government Area, particularly in Angwuan Rogo, Layi zana, Katako and parts of Bauchi Road. It later spread to Zaria Road, Gadabiu, Kabong, Rukuba Road, Jenta Adamu and Polo Roundabout.
Cases abound where rival cult groups embarked on supremacy war, like the Sarasuka Boys attacking the Yandaba Group and verse versa. It has got to the point that cult boys attack innocent road users at night. They rob people at will at Polo Roundabout, which is the centre of social activities at night. At this point, it was not just the case of Sarasuka cult and Yandaba cult boys, the old cult groups like Eye Confraternity, Black Axe and Black Eye became prominent in the city, particularly in parts of Jos North LGA like Apata, Faringada, Chobe, Busa Buji and Jankwano. Most beer palours around Polo Club used to operate till midnight or even beyond, but due to the activities of the cult boys, the beer palours no longer run beyond 7 pm. Polo area has become a dead zone to night crawlers in the city. Worse still, the ability of the cult boys to operate in the city at night unchallenged has given them the courage to also operate in broad daylight. It came to the point that security agencies were recovering dead bodies around Polo Roundabout and Kabong on a daily basis.
The trend was particularly prevalent in the second quarter of 2019. A Jos resident, Mr Michael Udom, recalled a scene in Polo area of Jos where an innocent man was shot dead by cultists in broad daylight simply because he wore a particular colour of dress. He said: “I am afraid of the boldness with which these cult boys are operating. Only yesterday, a young man was shot dead around Polo area by some cultists simply because they felt that the victim was wearing their colour while he was not a member.
The innocent man’s offence was that he wore a red shirt on white trousers. “The boys ordered the innocent man to pull off the dress in the middle of the road in broad day light. The man hesitated. He paid dearly for his hesitation; they shot him dead and fled immediately. So, it is now an offence to wear any colour of clothe you like as citizen? Where then is our freedom?” Cultism in Plateau State was once restricted to university campuses and hostels. But after the Jos crisis during which heavy and light weapons found their ways into the Home of Peace and Tourism, cult activities in Jos city became more pronounced.
But while cult groups were only noticeable in parts of Jos North initially, the presence of cult boys has engulfed the entire Jos North and has spread to Jos South in the last two years. It is not as if the authorities are sleeping over the situation. There have been efforts to tame the implacable criminal elements. As part of measures to check the menace, the state government decided to install streetlights in different parts of the city. With the activities of criminals in mind, Governor Lalong ensured that virtually every street in Jos city is installed with solar-powered street light. At the moment, not less than 70 per cent of the streets in Jos have been installed with streetlights. That, however, has done little to reduce the invasion of the city by criminals. In the face of the dangers that residents face on a daily basis, it is difficult to say that the police have done nothing.
As one resident, Musa Isah, puts it, the police are doing their best, in most cases, at the risk of their personnel’s lives. The thing is that criminals are not relenting and I don’t know why.” The reality of the invasion of Jos city by all manner of criminal elements is that the more arrests are made by the police, the more the criminals appear to become. The police are now begging residents for assistance by way of providing credible information about the people they suspect are being harboured in their neighbourhoods. Realising that they can no longer depend entirely on the police for their safety, most streets in the city have reconstituted their vigilante groups, many of which, unfortunately, have resorted to jungle justice. Once they grab any suspected criminal, they burn him alive. Only recently, there was a case in Kabong part of the city where thieves broke into the house of a widow and carted away some valuable items in broad daylight. Two of the thieves were caught and were about to be roasted alive when the police intervened.
The police had to beg the local vigilante men to release the suspects to them. But for the timely intervention of the police, the suspects would have been sentenced to death by incineration. In spite of the combined efforts of police and community guards, no one is at ease in Jos. You cannot afford to loiter around the streets once it is 8 pm. At home, you are only entitled to sleeping with an eye closed. In some streets, shop owners close as early as 5pm for fear of attack by gunmen.
The last time Jos city experienced such a life was at the peak of the ethnoreligious crisis in the city between 2009 and 2010 when government had to impose a dusk-to-dawn curfew and residents were forced to go to bed by 6 pm. But they had long forgotten the period since peace was restored. With the invasion of the city by criminals, however, the people themselves have taken the initiative to impose a curfew on the city by retiring into their homes as early as 7 pm. Of course, it is a decision they have taken against their own wish. They want to enjoy their night life but the hordes of criminals in the city would not just let them. •All effort to get reaction from the Police did not succeed
