By Patrick Andrew
Senator Abdullahi Adamu has warned the Presidency to refrain from further causing disaffection in Nasarawa state as it has the potential to snowball into a national holocaust that will be too hot to handle.
The former governor, who accused the ‘powers that be’ of deliberately creating tension in the state, said the brewing conflict, if allowed to eventually escalated could be worse than the socio-economic cum political repercussions of the Niger Delta militancy and the present insurgency in the North-east.
The Senator, who is in no doubt that persistent security challenges and the spate of fatal clashes in recent times among the people of the various ethnic groups in the state are politically motivated, warned the federal government and its agents against toying with a time bomb that could explode and consume the entire nation.
“Nasarawa state is very close to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) the seat of government. Any brewing crises in the state will spill over into Abuja with multiplier consequences. In its own interest and in the interest of the larger Nigerian society, the federal government must stop igniting crises in Nasarawa state.
“I warn the powers-that-be to stop causing conflict among the people, because it has the potency to explode far beyond the local enclaves and spread across Nigeria,” he cautioned stressing that the growing disaffection among the people, who had hitherto lived peacefully, was as a result of desperate political manoeuvres.
He said rather than set people against themselves all in desperation for power, those in whose hands it is to deepen democracy in the country must rise to the challenge of protecting the lives and properties of citizens and strive to live above board.
The former secretary of the Peoples’ Democratic Party’s (PDP) board of trustees regretted the increasing incidences of internecine wars among people that had co-existed mutually for ages noting that the executive arm of government must rise above parochial interest and debase political antics and focus on meeting its social contract with the people.
Peoples Daily recalls that apart from the Ombatse militia cult’s gruesome murder of several security operatives and hundreds of civilians on May 7, last year in Alakyo in Lafia East Development Area, and since the Eggon ethnic group and their Alago counterparts, who have lived together for years woke up one day last September and began destroying lives and properties, there have been further conflicts which many say are politically motivated.
Adamu said PDP government should think of better of deploying latent talents of youth in the country instead of always arming them to slaughter themselves in useless politically motivated wrangling.
The senator said the present conflict in Rivers state and pockets of politically planned crises in several states spiral beyond control stressing the developments in Nasarawa state were gradually pointing to an unpleasant direction.
The former governor said the PDP government has failed woefully to provide employment to the army of eminently young men and women in Nigeria as well as control the scourge of corruption stressing that instead of working meticulously to address basic needs of the people its agents are busy creating disaffection among them.
