Nigeria Content Online

The Special Task
Force in Jos discovered extensive bomb making equipment in a house
located at the Millionaires Quarters, around the city centre,
yesterday.

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.