By Ahmadu Umar
Gombe (Nigerian)- President Mohammadu Buhari on Monday visited Taraba state, northeast of the country to console and dialogue with stakeholders over the clash between the Fulanis and Mambilla ethnic groups.
The President who arrived the state at about 5.p.m said his reasoning for coming to Taraba was “to console those who lost their loved ones and relations in the various Crisis” which erupted in the state recently.
In their presentations, representatives of the various ethnic groups in the Mambilla Plateau which include the Mambilla, Fulani, Kaka, Cambu and Panso, as well as the Yanda and Fulani in Lau local government Area agreed that the major causes of the crisis were as a result of “injustices in the state.”
The President who charged traditional rulers to preach peace among their people was of the view that the ” country has to be secured before you can manage it “stressing that” if it is not secured nothing can be done.”
Citing the numerous achievements that have been achieved by the All Progressives Congress (APC) led government especially in the area of security, the President warned that any herdsman caught in possession of firearms (with a particular reference to AK47), should be charged to court.
Believing that the upheaval in Mambilla has claimed more lives than that of Benue and Zamfara states, Buhari reiterated his readiness to visit the people of the aforementioned states as well as Yobe, to sympathize with the people over the ugly situations.
Earlier the state Governor, Darius Dickson Ishaku, noted that the various skirmishes in the state which have continued to divide the people along religious and ethnic lines have been existing before his ascension into the number one position of the state.
According to him “when I came in the state had been divided along religious and ethnic lines” stating that “we inherited our own share of the problem in the state when we came in.”
The Governor who noted that the problems presently confronting the state ” is not with the locals” observed that the state have been infiltrated by “strange Fulani herdsmen” whom he said “came in with AK47.”
Pleading with the President to kit the security operatives especially the police, the Governor believes that crisis in the state would be reduced to the barest minimum if the President would endeavor to “kit, train and expose the police.”