Plateau killings: What Gov Lalong told Dogara

Plateau State Governor, Simon Lalong, on Saturday said he inherited the crisis between armed herdsmen and farmers.

Lalong spoke when he played host to Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara in Jos, the state capital.

The governor also lamented that he thought his state’s adoption of cattle ranching would stop the crisis between herdsmen and farmers.

He said, “The summary is that I inherited this problem. When I was in government earlier, we had such problems and we tackled them.


“I thought we had proffered a practical solution which I was already selling to other states to copy, and with this solution we had peace in Plateau for over three years and we were in the mood of celebrating the peace when this one came.”

The governor said when the recent killings occurred, he “realised that maybe something went wrong somewhere, and that is what we’re trying to find the immediate cause if this problem and try to settle it once and for all”.

“For us, this event will not discourage us at all. We have taken our stand that we’re going to start from where they stopped and continue to build on it. We will revisit the architecture to solve our own local case, and then contribute to the national discourse on how to have peace in this country.

“One of the things I said to Mr. President was that even the effect on people who have been displaced for a very long time is something that sends long-term grievance to people.

“Any remote cause to bring back those bad memories tends to make people take laws into their own hands. You see people have IDPs in some places that haven’t been recognised for many years.

“Each time we try to put them together, many of them their houses have been destroyed, they can’t get back to those places. Some people return only to see that others have taken over their houses. That’s why in my speech to Mr. President I said here, we’ll not allow anyone take over another’s land again.

“The issue of land grabbing will no longer be there. Where we have places that are insecure, we’ll do our best to provide security so that people will have the opportunity to come back to their various places.”