THOUGH eyewitnesses put the casualty figure of the Jos crisis yesterday at 18, the Plateau State Commissioner for Information and Communications, Mr. Yiljap Abraham, said that the state government could not ascertain the exact figure.

He said that there would be a joint meeting later in the day where the Commissioner of Police, Mr. Emmanuel Dipo Ayeni, would release the casualty figure.

But Abraham admitted that there were casualties. “There are casualties but the police will release that later in the day. The flash points in Jos are Farin Gada, Kabon, Rukuba Road.”

At a press briefing yesterday evening, Abraham said the Ministry of Health was working with other hospitals to ensure that those wounded were adequately taken care of.

He said that government was on top of the situation and that arrangements had been concluded to ensure that today’s and tomorrow’s public holidays were observed without any hitch, adding that the setback was a temporary one.

The leader of the Izala group, popularly called JIBWIS, Alhaji Sheikh Yahaya Jingri, was said to have sustained a head injury but the National Publicity Secretary of JIBWIS, Mohammed Ahmed Ashiru denied it.

The Izala muslims in Jos, Plateau State who started their fasting when the moon had not been sighted but ended their fasting on Sunday and went to the Rukuba Road Praying Ground in Jos North for their Eid-el-Fitri prayers were allegedly prevented from performing their Islamic rites.

The Special Task Force (STF), the police, the SSS and other security agents later evacuated them in their Hilux vehicles.

At Enugu Road, muslims and some youths engaged themselves in a fierce duel where stones were freely used. The STF and other security agencies fired gunshots in the air to disperse them.

The crisis spread to other places simultaneously and illegal road blocks were quickly mounted but were later dismantled by the soldiers of the STF. The military helicopter hovering in the air could not stop anything. Jos metropolis is now a ghost town as people have deserted the place while police headquarters are being used as a refugee camp for some people who fled their houses for safety. Many people have started travelling out of Jos.

Business and other commercial activities were paralysed yesterday as shops were closed and two buildings were set ablaze.




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