TheCable

A group known as the Southern Kaduna Unity and Peace Forum (SKUPF) has demanded the removal of Agyole Abeh, Kaduna police commissioner, accusing him of “speaking in the same tune with the enemies of the place”.

Abeh had said the killings in southern Kaduna was exaggerated.

“The issue of people being killed and houses burnt (in southern Kaduna) are all exaggerated. The crisis in southern Kaduna is about attacks and reprisal attacks, but the security is on top of the situation,” Abeh had said.

But in a statement on Monday, Daniel Bobai, chairman of SKUPF, said Abeh’s comment was “infuriating” to the families who have lost their family to the killings.

“We plead with the authorities of the Nigeria Police to remove him from Kaduna state. We have lost confidence in him. [His statement is] very unfortunate and very disturbing, that the man tasked with the onerous responsibility of  protecting the beleaguered people of southern Kaduna would come so low to speak in the same tune with the enemies of the place,” the statement by Bobai read.

“In what way would this add to the confidence building our people are already beginning to have on the police? Who does the CP want to please and what does he stand to gain by stirring up an issue that had quieten?

“The statements are not only infuriating to the family members of  hundreds of people killed, scores maimed into disability forever, thousands of widows and widowers, scores of communities totally destroyed, it is also a very inciting statement.”

He said it was depressing that while the affected communities have been able to bring the figures of those killed to over 800 as of last year, the police have failed to do so till date.

“It is also equally very provocative and inciting for the police commissioner to affirm assertively that some community leaders are benefiting from the tragedy of their own people without mentioning who  these leaders are; how they have benefited and by how much  they have profited from the pogrom,” he said.

“If they are trying to use him, to rewrite the tragedy as ‘reprisal’, we need to inform him that the shinning sad truth of our situation cannot be painted with the dark brush of lies and deceit.

“What is happening in southern Kaduna has nothing to do with reprisals. It is a clear attempt to wipe out natives of southern Kaduna.”