Tom Garba
The Speaker, Taraba House of Assembly, Mr. Abel Diah, on Monday described a documentary on June, 2017 crisis on the Mambilla plateau, which has gone virile on social media, as an orchestrated campaign of calumny against him.
Diah, in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media, Mr. Baba Jen, stated that the documentary was not only absurd but a mischievous ploy by a faceless group to cast aspersions on the personality of the Speaker.
Jen explained that their action was an attempt to score a cheap political goal.
The statement titled “Mambilla Genocide Documentary: A campaign of calumny against the Speaker”, accused the producers of the documentary of presenting visuals and narration based on unverifiable claims that Diah incited the unfortunate incident.
Jen said the faceless group behind the documentary obviously took delight in the crisis and the attendant suffering of the people of Sardauna Local Government by continuing to fan the embers of ethnic disunity in a bid to cause further chaos.
“We particularly observed that the social media is of recent, awash with series of brief video titled ‘Mambilla genocide documentary’ in which the producers presented visuals and narration which lay brazen unverifiable claims to the Speaker’s involvement in the unfortunate crisis that bedeviled the Mambilla plateau in recent time.
“It is rather unfortunate that the producers of the video mischievously extract a brief part of the Speaker’s comment during the plenary of the Assembly on 10th June, 2017 while concurring to the submission of a member of the Assembly representing Nguroje constituency, Alhaji Bashir Mohammed,” he said.
Giving a vivid account of what transpired at plenary on the day in question, the statement noted that Mohammed, while contributing to a joint motion on the need to set up a committee to visit Takum and Ussa to assess the situation following herdsmen attack in the area ,prayed that the scope of the committee’s work, which was chaired by Mr Charles Maijankai ,be extended to Nguroje in Sardauna local government.
Mohammed, according to the statement had stated that there was an ‘incubating crisis’ in Mayo Sina which if not nipped in the bud could degenerate into a bigger crisis, and was unanimously supported and passed by the House after the Speaker had lend his voice to Mohammed’s additional prayer.
Jen therefore challenged the producers of the documentary to circulate the entire contributions of members and the complete remarks of the Speaker during the sitting to allow the discerning public understand the truth of what transpired.
He noted that using a part of the video to depict the negative is not only misleading but an act of cowardice.
