Senator says governor lied on live TV

In a statement issued in Kaduna on Thursday, April 7, 2016, La’ah said it was unfortunate that El-Rufai was playing politics with what he described as worrying situation going on in his constituency.

“The truth is that there is a steady and unrelenting onslaught on isolated communities in Southern Kaduna and environs, which has not been reported by the Press since last year. The murders, kidnappings, rapes and provocative destruction of crops, all by persons that the victims believe are Fulani, are just too numerous to be captured in just a press statement, since June 2015, till date,” La’ah said.

The senator said Kaduna State Government is using the Southern Kaduna killings to play politics, deceive the world and shun its responsibility to his people, added that he had called the attention of the state government to the evil as recent as this January.

“During my speech in Barnawa Prison Staff College in Kaduna at the Bajju Annual Festival, I madeit abundantly clear, that the killings in Southern Kaduna and related feeling of insecurity still persisted.”

“Just last Thursday (31 March, 2016) in Zamandabo, Zamandabo District in Zangon Kataf, the village was invaded by unspecified number of gunmen. One Danladi Makajim, 57, was killed and four escaped with gun wounds in an apparent robbery of shops in the village,” La’ah said in the statement.

“I have been informed that two of the culprits have been arrested, after they launched an attack on Zangon Kataf town in Atyap Chiefdom; not less than four persons have been killed by rampaging Fulani men (as the villagers insist) this year alone. Again, on the 30 March, a number of gunmen lay ambush to four youngsters in Kiring village, Damakasuwa District, in Kauru LGA caught one Sarengi Barnaba, a primary School pupil. He was not only killed, his eyes were gouged out, his tongue severed and his heart removed”

“The tendons on his legs were also pulled out. The boy was buried last Friday in the village in the presence of the Police. The situation is worse in Sanga LGA, where the violent armed brigandage robberies on the highways are too common. A day after Governor Nasir El Rufai made some communities to sign a curious ‘peace’ agreement between some 29 native communities in 5 LGAs of Southern Kaduna, with most of them from Sanga, one Daniel Yakubu, fron Antor village, Aboro District, in Numana Chiefdom in Sanga LGA, was killed allegedly by the same Fulani that were supposed to have signed the peace deal with our communities.”

“This, I believe is in contempt of the ‘peace agreement’. The village head of Anfu (Doka Area) Kateri North in Kachia Local Government was shot dead on the 25 of February, 2016 in the presence of his family and the entire community for what the marauders described as his unrelenting collaboration with authorities in seeking to expose their activities. I made efforts to visit the victim’s family but I was stopped by security agents,” the statement added.

The senator said there have been killings in villages in Numana, Wasa and Nizom Districts to the extent that the police seemed overwhelmed by the situation adding that rape of schools girls returning home from School is common in the area “with a particular case of a young girl in Yaute village, Ninzom Chiefdom last month where a 15 year old girl was ganged raped and is still receiving medical attention due to the severity of the rape.”

“I have been reliably informed that there may be acute food shortage in Sanga and environs next year because natives are scared of going to their farms because of the fear of the unknown, coupled with the fact that the dry season crops that have been cultivated are being destroyed in many communities by the cattle of armed Fulani men,” the senator said.