In its efforts to stop cattle rustling in the State, which is threatening the relative peace that has returned to the State, the Plateau State Government said it has set up a Cattle Rustling Committee, which will include all members of the various tribes in all the seventeen Local Governments in the State.
This was disclosed by the State Commissioner for Information and Communication, Abraham Yiljap, in an exclusive chat with DailyPost in Jos on Monday.
According to him, “What the government has done is that we have sat with the various communities in the southern zone as well as in the northern zone. We have agreed first of all on the formation of Cattle Rustling Committee, which will include all members of the various tribes, in the affected communities.
Stressing that, “These are not necessarily vigilante groups, but people who are knowledgeable in the understanding or had the mentality of such crime and who can identify, the route they take, or behaviours and can very quickly identify cows that are rustled”
He decried that, “One of the greatest challenges confronting Plateau is that of cattle rustling. We have found out that this is a multi million naira industry and we have found out that it is well organized, funded and well armed.
“You have people who specialize in cattle rustling. Even if you keep about 8-10 cows, they are able to rustle them from your own backyard, without knowing and getting them off” He explained.
He said, “These are people who are able to move something like, 500 cows at once and simply disappear, to the extent that, even where we have had aerial patrols, we have not succeeded in actually pining them to any particular location.
He emphasised that, “ cattle rustling is such that, the people who are engaged in it are well connected, they are vast in the knowledge of the local environment, which has created the impression that they are people who are either, working with those within the local environment or have been living within the local environment.
The image maker maintained that in the northern zone, the Fulanis, Beroms and other tribes have also lost cows, saying “That tells you that various kinds of people have been involved in this crime.
He further lamented that the act was a threat to the state because, “When for example, cows are rustled in the Northern Senatorial Zone, we tend to criminalize that act by throwing it on a community. We say it is this tribe that has done it. If for example Fulani cows are rustled, they will say it’s the beroms, if berom cows are rustled, they will say it’s the fulanis.
Adding that, it’s a similar situation in the Southern Senatorial District, “where if Fulani or Hausa cows are rustled they will say it’s the Taroh, if the Taroh cows are rustled they will say it’s the Fulanis and so on.
Yiljap furtherdecried that, “There is the tendency to stigmatize communities as rustlers or to bring such criminal activities, to the doorsteps of communities and they have continued to recap them like that, as such has been heightening tension.
“One of the very terrible part of it is that we have had reports of armed people, coming into different parts of the state, with the aim of helping to retrieve those cows. Now these armed people are not our regular soldiers or policemen or other security agencies; which means they are bearing arms illegally” He affirmed.
He further said, “Which also means they are coming in and out, and causing tension, as a way of adding to the nature of criminal activities that we had, and the State Government is not going to tolerate that, no one has the right to engage in impunity. Everything must be done according to the dictates of the law”.
He said the state government had strengthened inter local government coordination, especially the affected ones like Wase, Langtang North, Langtang South, Shendam, Mikang and Qua’an Pan.
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