ABOUT a year ago, Dogo Nahawa town in Jos South local government, Plateau State, close to four hundred people, mostly children and women, were killed in a midnight raid by Fulani herdsmen alleged to be on vengeance mission about a year ago. The barbaric manner in which the killings were carried out is still a talk of the town.Since the tragic incident, Dogo-Nahawa and other adjoining villages have become ghost communities.Apart from those killed, several houses were destroyed and the survivors rendered homeless. It has been traumatic experience for the people in the past one year. Commercial and farming activities are at the lowest ebb as most of the agile youths have been caught down at their prime by the marauders, making it difficult for the aged ones to survive.Though members of the Special Task Force (STF) are now stationed within the community to wade off any attack but the people are still living in fear and the attack has rendered some of the survivors incapacitated to eke out a living.Exactly one year ago, when four hundred victims of the massacre were committed to mother earth in a mass grave at the village, the people of the affected community in conjunction with the authorities of Barakin-Ladi and Jos North Local Government organised one year memorial service in honour of the deceased on Monday by their grave site at Dogo-Nahawa.The memory of the sad event was still fresh in the minds of the survivors and others from surrounding villages who thronged the grave site for the memorial service.Most women who lost their children, husbands and other relations were soaked in tears, cleaning the faces intermittently with handkerchiefs.Nigerian Tribune investigations revealed that there were more widows in the community now as a result of the killings.A middle-aged man, Chuwang Luka, who survived the massacre by the whiskers, said his saving grace on the night of the unfortunate incident was that while trying to escape, he fell inside an uncompleted well in the village and thereby evaded the attackers. According to him, apart from the fact that he escaped the incident, he was yet to come to terms with the reality of losing 33 close relations in the attack.Luka said the past one year has been a difficult and trying moments for the survivors, saying, that at a point in time they were sleeping outside due to lack of accommodation until the state government and other philanthropic organisations came to their aid by supplying roofing sheets and other building materials to re-construct their burnt houses.Mrs. Paulina Monday, who lost four children to the barbaric incident, found it difficult to express herself when asked on how she had been coping in the past one year.With tears cascading from her eyes, she simply declared: God has been keeping me, she turned and left the scene.Another woman, Madam Jacob, who had just been discharged from the hospital as a result of machet cuts she sustained from the assailants, said she spent nine months at Jos Hospital before she was recently discharged.Madam Jacob, who is still in crutches, said she lost a son and five grandchildren in the attack. Also, there were many women and children in the community with pathetic stories who were yet to come to terms with the reality of the incident.Delivering the sermon at the memorial service, Reverend Gyang Pam, reading from the book of Matthew 5:1-12, noted that Jos crisis had become a paranoid, and problematic to Plateau state, Nigeria and the world at large, stressing that it seemed that the crisis had defied any solution and remedy.Matthew who was disturbed by the repeated occurrence, said the crisis had led to the loss of lives and destruction of properties worth billions of naira, adding that the crisis have also increased enmity between christians and muslims in the state.Rev. Pam identified three dimensions to Jos crisis which include religion, involvement of the military, saying that the military personnel sent to the state to protect lives and properties took advantage of the crisis as a money making venture and are making fortunes through fraudulent acts.According to him, the third dimension is that of political indices. While some indigenes and some political lords wanted the crisis to continue for their political advancement, once there is peace in the state, they do not have a political point to score, whereas if there was crisis in the state, they wanted the federal government to declare a state of emergency in the state as if it was only Plateau State that had been going through crisis.Governor Jonah Jang, who was represented at the memorial service by his Special Adviser on Religious Affairs, Reverend Gyang Choji, attributed the continued crisis in the state to the inability of the people to forgive and forget.It is high time people of the state forgive and forget, especially victims of the previous crises. If they want peace in the state, it is high time the people of the state, especially victims of various crises in the state put the past behind them and detach themselves from any act or trait that can likely bring vengeance,the crisis will not end if every victim or affected community insist on taking its own pound of flesh.It is by forgiving and forgetting that all can live. The idea of forgiving and not forgetting is dangerous and unhealthy for the society and cannot bring about desired reconciliation, God did not make a mistake by bringing us to live together, he said.Among those whose spoke at the service were Senator Gyang Dantong, clergymen, traditional rulers and other eminent personalities both within and outside the state. The leader of the community, Professor Yohanna Dung Gwom, implored the state government to come to the aid of the community in terms of providing basic amenities, adding that the government is yet to fulfill its promise of constructing roads linking the community to the state capital.After the service at the grave site, a burial monument was unveiled, which transformed the mass grave site.Nigerian Tribune findings revealed that the inhabitants were living in squalor and deplorable condition. Most of those who thronged the village at the wake of the attack and promised to help them are yet to fulfill their promises.In the past one year, the state government has only succeeded in building a police station and clinic in the area while the roads leading to the village are in deplorable state. The present condition of the roads leading to the community reveal that they might be difficult to ply during the raining season. Most of those who spoke with the Nigerian Tribune implored the government to do something before the commencement of the raining season.But the state government through its representative at the memorial service said the government had awarded the road contract to the PW Construction Company.
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