 Southern Kaduna has an experience in a fresh wave of killings in recent times. Senator Ahmed Muhammad McCarthy, a former governor of Kaduna State, has spoken on the events, saying that the news of a resurgent wave of attacks and violence are leading to loss of lives of innocent people around the Jema Akhara Zangon Kataf local government axis of Kaduna State was horrible and as horrible and obnoxious and unacceptable. Also the state government has stated that the death toll in Sunday's attack in Kauraloko government area has risen to 34 including two military personnel. Now joining us to discuss these unfortunate events is Joseph Hyab, he's a priest, a clergyman rather, and the Kaduna State chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria. Revan Hyab, good evening to you. Thanks for your time. Revan Joseph Hyab, can you hear me please? Yeah, I can hear you. Thank you very much for having me. It's given me. Interesting. We've had a wave of attacks and killings in Kaduna State. The last one we hear in places like Kauraloko government area, you know, also before that we had about Zangon Kataf. And the latest figure we hear between 34 and 37 bodies being recovered including two military personnel. It was 34 before we were told the mob attacked three persons and killed them in a headers camp. What exactly is this wave of attacks this time in southern Kaduna all about? The recent one? Yeah, well, before I actually respond to your question, let me correct that there was no mob attack and killing of any other because the government spoke person or the commissioner of security who issued that statement realized that it was a mere propaganda from his office because there was nothing like that. And he has also issued another statement to retract that because there was nothing like that. The killing was in Kaguru, in Kafanchan, and in Kauraloko. We are innocent citizens who had no business with anybody than just trying to live their lives. We are attacked, killed. Over or almost 200 houses were burned. Over 37 people were killed, including women, young children, older people. What an unfortunate situation. All right. Reverend, this latest wave of attacks, what would you say is behind this? I mean, you're chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria and a body that has been active in terms of talking and speaking out against the violence in Kaduna state. What is behind this latest attack? Well, there's really nothing latest. It's just a continuation of what has been going on for a long time. I think the bandits have found Kaduna a suitable ground, a suitable fertile soil for them to carry out their barbaric act. And so they move from one community to the other and southern Kaduna seems to be receiving the largest share of the attack. They move from Zengon, Qatar. The next day, they will go to Kaural. Another week, they will go to Jema. Another week, they will go to other Kachia and so on. The fact is that within the last six days, there were so much attack around, but this one became very famous because lives were lost. But in Kachia, local government alone, around over 49 people were kidnapped and about six to five people were killed. And nobody talked about it. Then on Sunday, this unfortunate incident happened. The southern Kaduna one has become a victim of a conspiracy that we cannot define and we cannot explain why. Why will this bandit every day come and attack innocent citizens? Why will this bandit every day come and attack people in their homes? And you know, we always come forward and make some argument that this is the hardest farmers clashes. I cannot even understand what it means when you say it is the hardest farmers clashes, because someone is sleeping in his house, someone has no business with farm, even with harding, and criminals walked into his community, killed him, burnt his house, and you call them, you call that farmers hardest, but that's the kind of time that they find it suitable to use and confuse people instead of dealing headlong with criminals who are attacking people in their homes, who are destroying livelihood, who are even making citizens of Nigeria not sleeping in their homes. Because there was a time our governor came out to tell the world that these criminals and these bandits are foreigners. He even told the world that he went out there and paid them money. What are we seeing now? Probably the money he paid them had finished and they need new money. You can see the implication of paying money to criminals. That's why when he came back again and started changing his tune and telling the world that he's not going to negotiate with bandits, we find that to be pure politics because you were the ones who said there was no other option than to give them money. You've given them money, they've enjoyed the money, they've become rich, they've bought more whippers, they now want to operate with their opals and you're telling them that there will be no deal, no way. And I believe that's why the criminals and the bandits are refusing to leave Katuna because they have fine our state, a vital ground for them to continue to do their evil, and they know that 98% of what our governor said is purely rhetoric and there will be no action. We've talked about Katuna over the past few years a lot. The governor of Katuna State, Nasser Arafah, who you've just talked about recently said the killing has become more than the Boko Haramian terrorism in the northeast. So he has called the government to also look at the northwest as well. And it's become more prominent than even Boko Haram attacks. You've talked about criminals, you've talked about bandits. Who exactly are these people, where do they come from and what is their motive? Yeah, well you see these bandits are out to actually destroy a source of livelihood in the whole of Katuna State because even yesterday night they were in Gihua local government. The fact that in Gihua they kidnapped a priest, they killed three of our brothers, they destroyed their homes over 10 houses, they killed many other people in Gihua just yesterday, just yesterday. But you see one of the reasons why Southern Katuna becomes more on the news is because once such killings happen in other parts, the language the government will use in defining the killing becomes different with the language you will use in defining the killing when it comes to Southern Katuna. So people find out to be very hypocritical because a responsible government supposed to be fair, supposed to be honest, supposed to protect every citizen, irrespective of its identity. A responsible government should not begin to protect or speak favorably for criminals. But what we find in Katuna today is our government, killings are going on everywhere because it will be wrong for anybody to assume that all the killings are in Southern Katuna. But once it happens in Southern Katuna, the language the government use is not a language of good. Either Reverend Joseph Hyab, can you please hear us? All right. Yeah, I can hear you. Okay, yes, so continue. We can hear you, continue please. Yeah, I'm with you, I'm with you, I'm with you. Yes, yes. So, of course, the killings in Katuna are well documented. In fact, the governor of Katuna said, Nazi-erafi, they talk about, you know, like I said earlier, the statistics of killings in the South and Northwestern part of the country. But we've been hearing two particular local government areas as being prominent, you know, in all of this, hundreds of lives lost since 2020, 2021. And now we're talking about 2022. I'm referring to Kaurau and Zango Kataf local government areas. Why is it that with this particular local government areas, it's not impossible to have a solution, even if it's a military solution, to secure them knowing that these are red areas? Yeah, that's what we expect government to do. If a governor realize that a particular area is prone to danger, is prone to crisis, is being attacked, then steps must be taken to secure that area, to protect that area. The governor knows very well that the bandits are terrorizing the people of Zango Kataf. They are terrorizing the people of Kaurau. They are terrorizing the people of Jamaloka government. They are terrorizing the larger part of Southern Katuna. But you see, there is no concrete effort. We've heard that they put a military, a mobile police station. It interests you to know that that particular community in Kaguru that was attacked last Sunday, it's not up to 10 minutes or five minutes drive from where the mobile police are. So you ask yourself, what was, what did they put the mobile police there for? There was a time, the chief of Army staff, or the chief of Air Staff told us that they are going to start an Air Force barracks there. All these are rhetoric. They come to the media every day and sing songs of things they are never going to do. So Nigerians will just assume that all is well in Southern Katuna, only to hear the next day that there is an attack. And when, in a sense, Southern Katuna people hear this good news and think that oh, they are bringing security forces around us and they go to sleep and the enemy will come again and attack them. That's why we are so disturbed that why should government specializes in telling lies, specializes in propaganda, specializing in misleading our people and she's not protecting them. This is unfair. These are citizens. These citizens voted for you, even if they do not vote for you for the mere fact that you took out of office to defend the lives and protect lives and properties of the citizens. It is upon the citizens of the state why should you allow some part of the state to suffer and every day they are busy burying loved ones. The other day I attended the burial in Southern Katuna where we buried 38 people in one burial service. What kind of life is that? How can such people be productive? Yeah, Reverend Hayab, I'm also hearing that today it's been in the news in the last few minutes, I must say, that about 50 people have been, have lost their lives and we're going to try and get some clarity on this story. In Giewa local government area of Kaduna State, we're hearing bandits attacked nine communities. Have you heard anything like that? I think you did mention something. If you had listened to me earlier, I did share with our viewers to know that we are aware of the story of the killing in Giewa because the Christian community there have reported to us how their homes were burnt. Yeah, Giewa has also been in the news in the past few months, virtually every week, an attack could happen in Giewa. So completely what I would say is that there's a failure of governance. That is why Kaduna State is always on the news for bad reason, always on the news because lives are being lost. But President Muhammad Buhari, of course, the governor of Kaduna State is a governor. He's not a president and he has a limit to what he can do. You might want to argue with that but he has previously appealed to the president to do something about the situation in Kaduna State. The human rights writer's group is saying, who Giewa is also saying that President Buhari is doing nothing basically about the situation. They've called it a reluctance to stop the killings in Kaduna State and petitioned the UK and the EU over what they call Buhari's reluctance. Would you say President Buhari is reluctant to stop the killings in Kaduna State and can he possibly do more than is being done right now? I believe those who are advising President Buhari have given him a narrative that is quite one-sided, a narrative that is selfish, a narrative that does no show of concern to the lives that have been lost. Did you even read the press statement released from presidency about the killing in southern Kaduna? It's quite sad. How can citizens of your country being killed and you make such release as if it is a reprisal attack? How are people sleeping in their house and so on come and kill them and all you say is that you're warning against reprisal attack? That's to tell you that the president is being fed with wrong information. The president is not properly advised and if he is fully aware and is passing instruction then his instructions are not being carried out because killings continue every day in southern Kaduna. Sometimes we are so tired and weak to keep coming over and over to be crying that there is killing, there is killing. When we talk about killing, we are talking about killings of human beings. We are not talking about just about a tribal group or a faith group. We are talking about killings of human beings. These people are Nigerians. They are citizens of this country. All right. All right. Reverend, we have to go. We have to go. But indeed President Buhari in that press statement condemned the killings and he said that, quote, mindless act of violence has no place in the civilized society. So he did, he called it a cowardly attack on innocent civilians. So we also need to point that out. But I want to thank you. Yeah, he did. But some of the words he added to, you see, when you are talking about people who are crying, you have to be careful with your words. We have to go. We have to go. Yeah, thank you. We have to go. I want to thank you very much. I think the point has been passed. Reverend Joseph Hybe is the chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria in Kuduna State and he's been a guest on Plus Politics. Thank you for staying with us. We round up today's show with the weekly highlights of the show and Kofi Patel's Plus Politics Returns on Monday. The feeling of the house and the feeling of most people who have read the judgment is that it's a judgment that marks of what people have been complaining about in the Nigerian political system, mainly that politicians are trying to bring the judiciary into dispute. There is no reason whatsoever for the court, for instance, to enter into, to accept that case, the way it was accepted, to give an order against a party that was not a party to the suit and to order further that the, that the executive should perform the duties of the legislature by going to delete a section of the electoral act. What the honorable court should have done or should have stopped that would have been simply to say in his opinion that the said section of the constitution was null and void to the extent of its inconsistency to a specific section of the constitution. The later judgment by the state high court is actually very sad and unfortunate and clearly shows that we still have a lot to work to do with that judiciary because the both the state high court and the federal high court also coordinate jurisdiction. They are in the same level. They are on the same pedestal. So it is sad that on same issues, same parties, these cases were going on simultaneously. I don't know what really happened. A station where immediately the federal high court, Abuja gave judgment, the state high court, which obviously, given the circumstance and from my experience seemed to be a judgment in flint. I think NJC and the Najam power station has a lot of work to do to ensure that corrupt judges do not. In fact, these days are the federal high court. When you're filing any suit, you will have to depose on affidavit that there's no other suit and you're not going to be case suits. So obviously what happened in a Boeing state high court is a misnomer and NJC should met all the appropriate sanctions on the offending judge. I would say that AFCC does not have the capacity to to deal with this type of crime because over time we have seen not too long, not three, not 10, not 15. It has become like a normal thing for AFCC. Once a public officer exhausts or the tenor expires, the nursing AFCC suits on him and is possibly arrested, get for few days, take to court, grant a bail. The politician comes back to the society and never allows the society to rest with the enormous money that they have paid for off-list from the government treasury. And for contesting for this position for the past 1992 up to this time that we are talking about 29 years ago. So by next there is going to be 30 years that are to come back as a brand for this position. The question now is, has it always been bearing is a political manifesto. I did the same thing that he has been talking about. I didn't be able to upgrade himself. And another question that we have been looking at is age. By this time next year, by the time we will be contesting the election next year, I think it will be about 76 years of age. If I'm not wrong, yeah, which about 76 years of age. So at 76, we're looking at the participants of the president who came in at 75 or 76 too. Looking at the age and what is happening under him, we remember how this must paint more than one year outside Nigeria for medical attention. Because at that age, there are a lot of things that happens to people who are over 70 years medical attention. So we demand be able to deliver at 76.