By Joseph Edegbo :
The Atyap community in Southern Kaduna, North West Nigeria, has accused security agents deployed to the area of not doing enough to justify their supposed mission.
Addressing newsmen in Kaduna on Monday, the National President, Atyap Community Development Association, Comrade Samuel Achie noted that despite the presence of security personnel, “under their noses, the enemies of peace perpetuate their heinous crimes against the peace loving people”.
“If the perpetrators are declared terrorists by government, why are these people moving about with AK-47 in the presence of the military deployed there, he queried.
Achie therefore called on the government to change its strategies as those evolved so far had not yielded fruitful results.
The government, he said, should as a matter of urgency appraise the performance of all the military personnel as there seems to be a dis-connect between what they are supposed to do and what they are.
HERE UNDER IS THE FULL TEXT OF PRESS BRIEFING:-
THE ON-GOING CARNAGE IN ATYAP LAND SINCE THE EARLY HOURS SUNDAY 30TH JANUARY, 2022, BEING TEXT OF A WORLD PRESS CONFERENCE BY THE PRESIDENT OF ATYAP COMMUNITY DEVELPOMENT ASSOCIATION (ACDA), COMRADE SAMUEL T. ACHIE, AT THE NUJ SECRETARIAT, KADUNA ON 7th FEBRUARY, 2022
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Press, it is with a heavy heart that I again have to address you today on the on-going carnage of killings, maiming, destruction and displacement of communities being perpetrated on the Atyap land by forces of the Fulani terrorist militia.
While we have remained resolute in pursuing the peace initiated by our paramount ruler, HRH Sir Dominic Yahaya Gambo and other sons and daughters of the land, the enemies of peace keep inflicting pains by invading our villages and killing our people at will and getting away with it.
The unfortunate thing is that at any time there is a peace meeting with either government officials, representatives of Fulani organizations or the NGOs to try and advance the peace process, the next will be an attack on the land by the Fulani terrorist militias, who subsequently vanish without any trace of their whereabouts.
The ability of the attacking terrorists to disappear without trace appears surprising. We call on the security forces to step up and show commitment to end the killings, to protect the lives and properties of the citizens.
Members of the Press would recall that it was in this hall I categorically stated that we are better up staying peacefully together than fighting and killing ourselves over ancestral heritage. Hence the escalating violence against the Atyap communities continues to beat human imagination. With the deliberate perpetuation of violence against the Atyap Chiefdom and communities in Zangon Kataf Local Government area of Kaduna State, the lives of citizens have been reduced to nothing in the land, and the lives and properties of our people are being
obliterated at will by those that feel they are protected and can do whatever they want with human lives and go free.
After my last Press Release and update on the happenings in Atyap land on 17/07/2021, many lives and innumerable properties have been destroyed in villages like Abuyab, Mazaki, Mawakili, Takjei, Matache, Matagama, Gora Gan, Kurmin Masara and Atisa. On Sunday 30th January 2022, 11 people were brutally murdered by Fulani terrorist militia forces, many were wounded, over 30 houses burned and over 100 people displaced.
Again, on Monday 31st January 2022, Atisa village in (Kurmin Masara) was attacked and 5 lives lost and 8 houses burned down too. even in the presence of the security check points in Bakin Kogi and Ashaawuce both less than a kilometer from the scene, some people from the area are still missing and unaccounted for.
This again has aggravated the humanitarian crisis in the land, thereby making life unbearable to the peace loving citizens of Atyap land.
In several meetings and in particular during one of our visits at the invitation of His Excellency the Governor of Kaduna State, Mal. Nasiru El-Rufai, he publicly applauded the efforts of HRH the Agwatyap on the efforts to sustain the peace initiative and the high respect he had for the paramount ruler.
Despite all this, His Royal Highness and the the Atyap nation have been left alone to carry their cross for reasons best known to the government. In that same visit, His Excellency did give a deadline that by December 2021, if peace was not restored in Atyap land that he would withdraw all the security operatives. Given the obvious abandonment of the Atyap communities to their fate in the hands of violent and murderous terrorists armed to the teeth with sophisticated weapons.
I sincerely feel it is time His Excellency call on the security apparatus for a review of strategy and possible changes where possible. I have said it before and I will say it again, that the entire Atyap nation has resolved that not an inch of our land will be taken for whatsoever purpose by the enemies of peace and good neighborliness in our community.
From what is transpiring, it has become obvious that the Fulani Terrorist Militias Forces and their sponsors feel they can take over Atyap despite the presence of government security personnel under whose noses they now perpetuate their heinous crimes against our peace-loving people.
Based on the foregoing, we want to make it categorically clear that the government should wake up to its responsibility of protecting its citizens’ lives and properties, which the state governor swore on oath to protect. We have cried enough buried our people enough and lost enough of houses and properties and we can’t take it anymore, hence our resolve as follows:
That if peace is to be achieved, the Fulanis in Zango urban should be advised to leave as it is strange that the Hausas and the Fulanis who have never stayed together as is the case now.
All sons and daughters of Atyap land believed that the Fulanis there either recruit or serve as guides to the perpetrators of these killings in our land. Whenever there is an attack, and the attackers are pursued by our people, they ran into Zango for safety with the Hausas.
That the international community should know that what is going on in our land is a genocide perpetrated by enemies of the land for reasons best known to them.
That the government should as a matter of urgency appraise the performance of all the military personnel as there seems to be a dis-connect between what they are supposed to do and what they are doing.
That all the good sons and daughters of Atyap land should from today know and appreciate that what is going on in the land is carefully planned and being executed to eliminate the Atyap race from the face of the earth.
That the government we contributed to bring into power have failed us, hence the need to come together to work to salvage our land from the perpetrators of these heinous acts of dehumanization of lives and properties of our peace-loving citizens.
That the Federal and Kaduna state government compensate and resettle those who lost their love ones, those whose houses got burned or destroyed and the farm lands that were destroyed by the Fulani Terrorists to alleviate their suffering.
That all lovers of peace and justice should come to the aid of the Atyap communities so that peace and peaceful co-existence is restored in our land.
In conclusion I want to call on all sons and daughters of the land and well spirited individuals within and in the diaspora to continue to pray and contribute generously both financial materially for the upkeep of the displaced people in the IDP camp.
The Lord we serve will rescue us from the hands of these murderers. The Holy Bible says “that weeping may endure for a night but certainly joy comes in the morning”. I call on our spiritual leaders all over the world to keep upholding us in prayers for an end to the carnage. Thank you all for coming and standing by us. God bless you.
Long live the Atyap Nation.
Comrade Samuel T. Achie
President, ACDA
