Military officers on a routine check stopped two men, Damtala Babawo and Peter Gotung, who claimed to be commercial motorcyclists, and found bomb making items in their polythene bags. Parading the suspects before journalists at the task force headquarters, spokesperson of the force, Charles Ekeocha said the hideout was discovered following the arrest of the two men.
“Our men arrested two men at the Lamingo junction (Jos North area) with some items in a black polythene bag. When they examined the content, they discovered they were bomb manufacturing instruments,” Mr Ekeocha said. “The two men were arrested, and when we interrogated them, they made statements that led us to this house at Millionaires Quarters where we discovered these items you are seeing.” Mr Ekeocha said the military had to go to court to get a search warrant before it launched the search.
“It was a cordon and search exercise and we discovered various equipment of bomb making value there. The real suspect, one Frank Anyor, had escaped before we got there. But we are holding one Terdo Anyor, his junior brother, whom we found in the house,” he said.
Shocking discovery
The equipment recovered, according to Mr Ekeocha include: A detonating cord, 33 electric detonators, a PH temperature monitoring metre, one briefcase containing PH metre, a handy lab, one conical flask, and two titronic machines. There were also an electrode, ERSA test tube, a briefcase of tubes for bomb making, an instructional manual on bomb making, a pamphlet on bomb making and a Hameg counter for timing.
Mr. Ekeocha also mentioned the discovery of four axis oster telescopes, extension wires, battery chargers, Imasol cleaning oil for telescope, measuring wheel for lamp cord, a carton of dynamite, theodolite, one safety fuse, and 27 detonators.
He said the suspects will be handed over to the police for further investigations and announced that the task force have received more reinforcement, especially security patrol vehicles, from the defence headquarters yesterday morning.
Meanwhile, an attack on Baten village in Wereng district of Riyom Local Government Area Monday night left two women and two children dead. The assailants escaped as the villagers mustered an immediate counter attack.
A lingering crisis
The build-up to the Jos crises which have lingered on for years took a morbid twist in March 2010 when unidentified herdsmen attacked a village; Dogo Nahawa in the early hours of the day and killed hundreds of children and women. Ever since, there have been series of similar killings across Plateau State, with few suspects jailed.
The crisis seems to have both ethnic and religious dimensions with ethnic issues paramount as ethnic groups: the Berom, Anaguta, Afizere and the Hausa-Fulani, all claiming pre-eminence and the question of who was “indigene” or “settler” causing serious problems.
Religion was infused into the crisis during the last Christmas eve when three bombs were detonated across different locations in the state as Christians were busy shopping for the event. The explosion claimed about 40 lives with a number of others injured. However, religious leaders, such as the Sultan of Sokoto; Sa’ad Abubakar and president of the Christian Association of Nigerian; Ayo Oritsejafor, immediately called a press conference and insisted that the conflicts in the Plateau State capital were not religious, but political.
The state governor, Jonah Jang in a state wide broadcast alleged that, “the aim of the masterminds is to put Christians against Muslims and spark up another round of violence.” He claimed that it was part of the calculated attempts to scuttle the peace achieved from the efforts of the state and federal government.
Both the state government and federal government have set up a number of panels to look into the root causes of the crises and a number of reports have been issued by the committees whose recommendations were not implemented.
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