By NAL Staff writer
Nigeria’s president Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday ordered the military, under the command of the nation’s Chief-of-Defence Staff, Air Vice Marshal Oluseyi Petinrin, to immediately take charge of “security situations” in the crisis ridden central state of Plateau and take “take all necessary actions to stop the recent spate of killings in the state.”
Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Reuben Abati made this know in a statement issued by the State House, Abuja.
The charge suggests all components of an emergency intervention, but with the president quite reluctant to categorically declared a state of emergency in the troubled state.
The president’s order follows a new level of bombings and killings by rival sectional group in the state’s capital, Jos and its environs. Local group reported that about 100 persons died in a recent twin bombing that rocked the state.
Some leaders of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), among them the national deputy treasurer, Muktari Mapia, have called on the president to take a strong stance against continued sectarian killings in that region of the country.
Despite many promises by the president to end surging sectarian violence and Islamist terrorism, the federal government and its security agencies still struggle to find an acceptable solution to the nation’s high level of insecurity - now a major threat Nigeria’s nascent democracy.
