Your press statement is bias, detrimental; Group tackles Taraba Senator elect Jimkuta
A social cultural group known as Ayatutu Cultural and Social Development Initiative, (AYACASODI) Worldwide, has expressed disappointment over a press statement issued to journalists by the Senator elect, representing Taraba South Senatorial Zone, David Jimkuta.
The Senator elect, David Jimkuta on Wednesday, in an online publication with a link https://weekendersmagazine.com/taraba-senator-elect-condemns-attack-on-constituents-calls-for-justice/, acused the Tiv people of attacking some villages along Wukari Tsukundi road, killing scores and injuring others.
But shortly after the statement by the Senator, the group reacted swiftly, discribing Jimkuta’s statement as a calculated and cooked write-up to profile the more than four years displaced Tiv communities of the area inorder to distract attention of the public from the mainhem that his kinsmen had blocked the Federal Road and unleashed on innocent travellers of Tiv origin in Wukari town.
In a press statement signed by the National Secretary of the association, Comr. David Nyiagee and issued to press men in Jalingo, the group said it “received with great shock and disappointment, the unfortunate and unverified allegations leveled against Tiv Nation by the Senator elect, Hon. David Jumkuta, who the same Tiv people of Taraba State massively voted for, leading to his victory against the immediate past Governor of the State”.
The statement pointed out that there was no village still standing, from Wukari to Tsukundi for over four years now as the people of the area, had been displaced and are taking refuge in different areas for more than four years now without government intervention.
According to the statement, any attempt made by the people to return to their areas is resisted by the local authorities, especially by the chairman of the council, who most atimes employ the services of some security agencies.
“This has made it possible for Jukun millitials to exhume the graves of our ancestors and spilled out corpses, destroy economic trees from all the Tiv villages along the road even as our churches and pastors residences are not left out. We want the necessary authorities to go on a passionate investigation as regard our claims.
“As a matter of fact, if there are people who deserve Justice and sympathy from the Senator elect, it is the Tiv people. Even before the clash between millitials along the road in which the Senator claimed it was attack on what can best be described as fictitious villages, there was a heavy attack on a Tiv settlement by Jukun millitials on a village called Akinde, in Donga Local Government Area which recorded lost of lives and the people displaced.
“This unprovoked attack on Tiv people was not in secret as it was published by different media houses within and outside Taraba State.
“We expect that the senator elect will be civil and fair in his dealings so as to maintain peaceful coexistence in Southern Taraba. He should always maintain his intergrity and act as the representative of all the people of the Zone and not a representative of only his kinsmen.
“He should call for investigation on the killing of innocent Tiv travellers who were forced out of vehicles and brutally killed in Wukari – Jalingo Federal Highway as confirmed by the Nigerian Police and also take some workable, justifiable and objective moves to broker peace between all the tribes in the Senatorial Zone instead of instigating youth to indulge in killing spree in the area.
“We hereby strongly condemn the unverified allegations leveled against Tiv Nation by the Senator elect in totality and ask him to withdraw the statement immediately if he does not want to become a tribalistic legislator so early but an unbiased representative of the people of Southern Taraba which the Tiv are also part of.
