The Atyap Community Development Association has urged the Bandiraku Fulbe Youths Association, under the leadership of Abbas J. Julde and Haruna Bello Laduga to join hands in the search for peace in the area.
In a statement issued yesterday in Kaduna as a reaction to the recent clash in Zangon Kataf of Southern Kaduna, the National President of the association, Professor Lucius J. Bamaiyi drew the attention of government and security agencies to the threat from MACBAN Director Media and Publicity, Kaduna State Branch, Malam Ibrahim Bayero Zango.
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According to him, “This press statement has become necessary because of the false claims and insinuations that the Miyetti Allah Cattle breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) has been making in the media over the very unfortunate happenings in Zango urban and surrounding Atyap villages since Wednesday 10th June, 2020.
“Last week on Friday 5th June, 2020 there was a squabble on farm lands with the Hausa community warning the Atyap natives to stop farming their farm lands which were around Zango urban town.
“The Agwatyap, our paramount ruler, and the security agents were able to broker peace.
“On Wednesday 10th June, 2020, a young teacher, Mr. Moses Yusuf Magaji, 32-years-old, went to his farm on the outskirts of Zango urban town, and did not return. Some youths and some security agents went out to look for him in his farm where he had gone to cultivate some crops.”
“He was not seen on his farm but his mobile phone was found and a pool of blood within the farm.
“The search for him went on throughout the Wednesday and continued into the early hours of Thursday 11th June, 2020 when his body was later discovered.
He said Atyap youth embarked on a peaceful demonstration to protest the killing and the security forces drafted to Zango opened fire on them, saying, “We currently have Atyap people who are on admission in various hospitals from gunshot wounds sustained when security agents opened fire on them.
After giving account of numerous attacks between 2017 to 2020, he said the Atyap did not retaliate in provocative killings due to the desire for peaceful coexistence with the Hausa-Fulani communities with whom they have stayed together for decades adding.
He said, “The MACBAN are misrepresenting facts with inflammatory statements to ensure that the peaceful coexistence that had prevailed in Atyap Chiefdom is ended and replaced by acrimony, violence and crises.”
He called on Atyap people to remain calm and law abiding and join law enforcement agents in ensuring return of peace to the land.
“I am also calling on the Hausa-Fulani communities in Atyap land to join hands with us in dousing the tension with a view to ensuring peace as no Atyap person is happy with the current chaotic situation in our land,” he said.
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