One week after more than 200 people were massacred in the violence-prone southern Kaduna area of Kaduna State, Governor Mukhtar Ramalan Yero is yet to visit the scene and reassure the besieged inhabitants. Instead, critics accused the governor of spending his time politicking.
Last week, more than two hundred inhabitants of the area, most of them children, women and the elderly were killed in Sanga local government area of Kaduna State. Security sources blamed herdsmen for the savage attacks.
Bitrus Yohanna, a US-based student who hails from the troubled area and arrived there last Monday, told SaharaReporters he witnessed a shocking level of death and devastation. He added that members of his community were dismayed that Governor Yero had failed to visit the villages where the mass killings took place.
Mr. Yohanna said, “The system in Kaduna is a shame and really deteriorating. President Obama will leave Washington for New York or Boston because of the death a few Americans. But here over 200 people have been butchered and the governor has not even gone there to talk to them or even to see things for himself. I got to my home in the village and saw that it was now burnt to ashes and most of my relatives killed.
He accused Mr. Yero of playing sectional politics. According to him, the governor “was at the scene of what he called a bomb in Kaduna less than ten hours after it happened. From there he came close to our devastated area to do a political campaign in one of our local government areas. But he did not find it worthy to visit villages where 200 people were killed.” He disclosed that the communities in the ravaged areas were still mourning, adding that some corpses had yet to be recovered.
A correspondent of SaharaReporters confirmed that Governor Yero attended a political rally in Kaura local government area near the scene of the gruesome attacks on inhabitants, but he did not visit the bereaved and traumatized survivors of last week’s massacre.
Mr. Yohanna said that there more than 20, 000 of his kinsmen were displaced in seven camps scattered in different parts of the state.