We condemn the cowardly, mindless and unprovoked attacks on unsuspecting and defenceless citizens.
The DADN calls on President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua not to treat the Jos Massacres as a religious crisis because it was not one. Media reports confirm that the hoodlums, who are elements of the Hausa-Fulani Community and their mercenaries, did indeed kill many Yoruba Muslims during the Massacres.
The Jos killings were a case of genocide – with violence directed against members of specific ethnic groups, religious beliefs and regional origin.
We call on the President not only to demonstrate impartiality in the handling of the Jos Massacres but also to be seen to be impartial. The Jos Massacres are a critical test for the President to demonstrate that he is the President of ALL Nigerians. No actions of the Federal Government must be construable as being partial.
President Musa Yar'Adua should set up a national security probe, not a mere administrative probe that it has instituted, into the role of foreign mercenaries who carried out much of the killings; with a view to determining who recruited them, dressed them in the uniform of Nigerian security forces and armed them with deadly weapons. Ultimately, the killers and their sponsors must be brought to justice.
The Federal Government must also probe allegations that the corpses of some of the victims were wrongly labelled as being those of members of the Hausa-Fulani Community and buried without the knowledge of their relatives - allegedly for the purpose of media propaganda. If that is true it would amount to killing the victims two times and punishing their relations doubly as they are denied the right to bury the victims according to the dictates of their religion and respectfully bid farewell to the murdered.
The Federal Government must without delay set up a National Commission to look into all the issues at stake in Plateau State with a view to finding a permanent solution to the terror which the inhabitants of the state have been subjected to in the last 10 years.
The President should call on the residents of Jos who have left the city and returned to their states of origin to return to Jos. He should promise them security and pay compensations for lives lost and the properties destroyed during the killings.
The Federal Government should demand that the leaders of the Hausa-Fulani Community in Jos seek redress to any grievances they might have through the established judicial system and constitutional order. It is beyond doubt that the latest violence in Jos emanated from agitations from the Hausa-Fulani Community.
The Federal Government must proclaim its belief in the sanctity of human life and its determination and resolve to protect all Nigerians irrespective of their racial, ethnic, religious and other identities wherever they may reside in the country.
The President should make a symbolic public proclamation that Nigerians irrespective of their religion, ethnicity, race and other affiliations have the right to live in all parts of Nigeria without the fear of genocide. This symbolic proclamation will assure Nigerians that the continued corporate existence of Nigeria has a meaning.
We condemn the calls for the resignation of Governor Jonah Jang as not only unnecessary but also diversionary. We consider such calls especially coming from a representative of organised labour like the president of the NLC, Mallam Abdulwahed Omar, as unfortunate. Representatives of important civil society bodies such as the NLC must rise above their personal sentiments in their reaction to national issues.
We call for a more forceful condemnation of the killings of Southerners in the North by political leaders in the South. In view of the massive migration of Southern Nigerians from the North, we call on Southern Governors to dialogue with their colleagues in the Muslim North with a view to obtaining an undertaking from them that they will appeal to their people to stop killing their fellow Nigerians from other parts of the country.
We must not ignore the lesson of history. Killings such as those of Jos sparked the Nigerian Civil War, which cost the nation more than 1 million lives, leaving scars that are still etched in the nation’s psyche until today.
We are of the firm conviction that too many of these unjustified, unjustifiable and unwarranted killings have occurred in Nigeria and that they have the potentials of sparking nation-wide reprisals and eventually lead to a civil war and the dismemberment of the country.
The time to act to stop these killings is now, for the peace and unity of Nigeria.
Signed: Akeem Kola Adebayo & Ken Imade Imasuen
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