Chief of Army Staff deploys special forces to Plateau

The Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Waidi Shaibu, a lieutenant general, has deployed the Chief of Army Staff Intervention Battalion of special forces to Plateau State.

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This was conveyed in a statement issued on Monday by Chinonso Oteh, the spokesperson for Operation Enduring Peace, a joint task force in the state.

The special forces, he said, will “aggressively and decisively” address the resurgence of terror attacks in Plateau.

Mr Oteh said the special forces were welcomed by Folusho Oyinlola, a major general and the commanding officer of the Headquarters 3 Division, who is also the commander of Operation Enduring Peace.

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The commanding officer was represented by the operation’s Chief of Staff, Senlong Sule, a brigadier general, who urged the newly deployed soldiers to be “decisive and ruthless in carrying out offensive operations against the terrorists.”

Mr Sule, according to the statement, appreciated the Chief of Army Staff for providing troops with the “needed combat enablers and other logistics” required to carry out their duties.

Mr Sule also appealed to residents of the state not to panic on sighting large numbers of troop movements and other heavy military equipment.

He thanked the residents for “their continuous support to the military”, urging them to do more by “providing actionable and timely intelligence” to aid troops’ fight against terrorists and criminals.

Plateau State has been facing a years-long violence stemming from political, ethnoreligious and farmers-herders conflicts.

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More than 4,000 have died since 1994, when the cycles of violence began in the state, following the rejection and agitation by indigenous people of the state over the appointment of Alhaji Mato, a Hausa-Fulani man, as sole administrator for Jos North LGA.

There were more than 15 instances of violence [excluding attacks by Boko Haram insurgents] that led to deaths and destruction of properties in Plateau State, according to a PREMIUM TIMES review of government data archived on the portal of Plateau Peace Building Agency (PPBA).

In 2023, a resource-based conflict broke out between Mwaghavul farmers and Fulani herders who had lived together for years in Mangu Local Government Area.

The conflict, which claimed more than 300 lives, spilled to other areas including Barkin Ladi and Bokkos where scores were killed in an attack that was described as a Christmas Eve massacre.