Citizens’ Engagement Has Doused Tension In Jos – Gov Mutfwang

Plateau State Governor Caleb Mutfwang has said the government has set up a peace-building agency to address incessant conflicts following nearly two decades of crises in the state.

He stated this at a conflict-sensitivity retreat for senior state government officials organised by the Middle Belt Brain Trust (MBBT) in partnership with the Plateau Peace Building Agency (PPBA) and Institute for Integrated Transition (IFIT) with funding support from the UK FCDO in Bassa local government area of the state.

Our correspondent reports that while the retreat was in progress, there was a report of a bomb blast at the Terminus Area of Jos, causing panic as any upheaval within the Terminus Area is seen as a deliberate provocation given that it is a market place with usually a high population transacting businesses daily.

Surprisingly, the reactions of Jos residents and  environs was different, as people waited to confirm  the story before the authorities take any action.

It was later discovered that the news was a hoax based on a false alarm raised by some concerned citizens.

Governor Mutfwang quickly addressed the matter, describing the report as fake while assuring the people of normalcy.

He said: “It was good that people were sensitive, as they saw an object and suspected it should be investigated. I think that is part of what we are called to do in society.

“Let’s be sensitive to things around us, to movements, to comments around us. We’ve been able to nip a lot of potential disasters by picking up credible intelligence on situations. But we must also be responsible, particularly in the use of social media.”

Chairman of MBBT, General Martin Luther Agwai (rtd) said the world was facing numerous conflict challenges and people have become copycats of violent acts.

He lamented that due to these, resources that would have been used to advance the development and comfort of the people were being diverted to resolving conflicts.

“It is for this reason the Middle Belt Brain Trust (MBBT) was formed to mitigate contemporary conflicts and governance challenges concentrated in Benue, Kaduna, Nasarawa, Plateau and Taraba states,” he said.

Stressing the need to prevent conflicts, he said a UN and World Bank report on preventing conflicts concluded that for each dollar invested in prevention, about $16 is saved down the road, stressing that for this reason, the MBBT was focusing on key medium-term structural and institutional challenges on Middle Belt violence and future prospects for peace and prosperity.

The director general of Plateau Peace building Agency, Julie Sandra, stressed the need to prevent conflicts and why government officials must be involved.

She said this was because given the cross-cutting nature of peace and conflict, there was need to mainstream conflict sensitivity in government business at all levels.

“This is more so in view of the fact that many challenges of insecurity are conflict-related or fall within the purview of peace and conflict thematic areas,” she said.

A woman who was around the Terminus area during the bomb scare, Mrs Hannatu Bitrus, told our correspondent that she did not panic when she heard it because they had been told at a women’s group meeting to be cautious of such information.

“If it were before, we would have been running up and down but because our leaders have spoken to us on how to treat such news, I waited and I’m happy it turned out to be fake,” she said.