Mr Simon Mwadkon, a member of the
House of Representatives, has narrated how the Senator died to Governor Jonah
Jang in Jos, saying gunmen, suspected to be Fulani herdsmen, “started shooting,
(at the burial), forcing everyone to abandon the corpses and scurry to safety.”
According to Mwadkon , while running
for dear lives, Dantong; the Majority Leader in the state House of Assembly,
Gyang Fulani; and Mwadkon himself were said to have slumped.
But while Mwadkom was revived, both
the Senator and the state lawmaker died.
He narrated, “We were at the burial
ground preparing to bury the victims of a massive attack on the villages when
the gunmen started shooting, forcing everyone to abandon the corpses and scurry
to safety.
“Everyone was racing away, but the
Senator slumped first and there was a rush to take him.”
The federal lawmaker described the
persistent killings in an area under a state of emergency imposed by the
Federal Government as “very outrageous and embarrassing.’
He said that hundreds of villagers
had been killed in the past few months, stressing that in some cases, whole
villages were wiped out in such attacks.
Mwadkon however called on the Federal
Government to protect the villagers as they remain vulnerable to attacks every
day.
Jang had reportedly asked
Mwadkon to “tell the world exactly what happened”, saying that God spared his
life to enable him to relay what had happened.
Jang said that Dantong and Fulani
lived exemplary lives.
“I have already visited the families
of the deceased and have reminded them that God is the comforter and will never
abandon them,’’ Jang said.
The Governor said that both Dantong
and Fulani sacrificed their lives for their people and declared that such a
sacrifice would not go in vain.
“They will be remembered for the
great sacrifice they made to their people because what happened to them could
have happened to anyone. I have also asked their families never to ask God why
He did it because He certainly knows why,” he said.
Commander of the Special Task Force
in Jos, Maj.-Gen. Henry Ayoola, also on Monday confirmed at a press briefing
that both Dantong and Fulani died in a stampede when they were attacked at a
mass burial in Barkin Ladi.
He said that the duo slumped and
could not be revived. Ayoola said the legislators were not shot dead as
believed.
Organised killings.
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