John Agim, acting director of
defence information, says some politicians use thugs “disguised as herdsmen” to
attack communities.
Although he did not mention a
particular state, the defence spokesman made the comment while speaking on the
farmers-herdsmen clashes that have led to killings in Taraba, Benue, Zamfara
and Nasarawa.
In an interview with PUNCH, Agim
said some arrested suspects have labelled politicians as their sponsors.
He said: “The problem which the
state governments (not only in Taraba) have with the military is that when the
military came in, they thought the soldiers were coming to enforce their laws.
Is that the military’s responsibility? If the military goes in and says it
wants to enforce the state’s anti-grazing laws, then it means the military is
doing the work of the state government. The military is not supposed to enforce
those laws. So we told them we are coming to make sure that there is security.
“It was also discovered that
there were a lot of people carrying arms, including the herdsmen. So we said
nobody should carry arms; anybody who carries arms shall be arrested. But they
(the state governments) don’t want their own people to surrender their arms.
“During this period, we also discovered
that some politicians were using their thugs against another community within
the same state, and they made it looked as if herdsmen were attacking the
people. Some of these people were arrested.
“For instance, in a local
government area, there are two communities fighting against each other and we
arrested some people with arms. We did not want to blow it up because it will
be misinterpreted.
“Some of the suspects arrested
and stopped from carrying out that vandalism told us that some politicians sent
them against another community to carry out those attacks. So the state
government said they did not agree with the army panel, but they have not given
any cogent reasons.”
Reacting to Theophilus Danjuma’s
allegation that the military is in collusion with herdsmen, Agim said: “The
military has no reason to collude with herdsmen because a good number of the
troops serving in that operation are from that region. People should not play
politics with security issues because if we do, it will not do anybody any
good.”
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