Emmanuel Ukumba in Lafia
Police authorities in Nasarawa State have confirmed five deaths in the recent communal crisis between the Egbura and Bassa ethnic nationalities of the state.
It was reported recently that Kolo, Katakpa, Ogba and other Egbura
settlements in Toto Local Government Area came under attacks as many lives were lost and property worth millions of naira destroyed.
However, the state Commissioner of Police, Mr. Yahaya Bello, confirmed the death figure of five in a telephone interview with our correspondent yesterday in Lafia.
He said the state police command has recovered five dead bodies during the attack in Toto Local Government Area of the state.
According him, “the command has since drafted its personnel to the trouble area to maintain law and order. I call on the warring communities to shift their swards and allow peace to rein in the state.â€
Similarly, the state government has confirmed the attack shortly after the state security meeting yesterday.
The state Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Abdulkarim
Kana, who addressed journalists shortly after the security meeting, said that there
were quite number of casualties, but could not give the actual numbers of people that lost their lives during the attack.
He, however, added that the state government was making frantic effort to ensure that it ascertain a specific numbers of those that lost their lives in the attack.
He disclosed further that property worth millions of naira were destroyed and several persons sustained various degrees of injuries.
Speaking to our correspondent on the recent attack on Egbura community, the national president of Egbura National Development Association (ENDA), Prof. Ibrahim Aguye, alleged that the attackers came in their hundreds with sophisticated weapons immediately after the Friday Jumat prayer and shot sporadically, killing and injuring scores.
He said: “We are constrained to give the concerned authorities some promising lead that would prove useful if followed.
“We are aware that a traditional ruler and a politician; both in Kogi State, and a high ranking officer with one of the anti-graft bodies, and a top civil servant in the legal department of the Federal Capital Territory, as well as a one-time chairman of Toto LGA; who are all sons of Bassa, and their conspirators within and without Nasarawa and Kogi States are some of the notable sponsors of this latest terror being visited on Egbura and their communities in the two states.â€
