‘Call For Vigilance Is Not Call To Arms Vigilante’- Gov Darius

By: Ben ADAJI- Jalingo
Taraba State Governor, Darius Ishaku on Tuesday clarified his remarks at a thank giving service in Jalingo to the effect that his call for vigilance was not a call to arms, rather a wake up call for the Christian community to be on their guards.
A statement by the Governor’s Special Assistant on Media, Sylvanus Giwa, explained that, it has become imperative to set straight the issues raised, in an earlier news item so as to disabuse the mind of the public on the wrong notion they may have been made about the statement the Governor made during a thanksgiving service organized by the Christian Association of Nigeria CAN, in Jalingo.
According to him, several points were raised in the adress, one of which was the Governor’s call to Christians to rise up and defend themselves. This is a call for vigilance rather than passive ignorance of the security challenges in the country, he explained stressing that, “in the past months, the Governor had urged people to be conscious of the influx of migrants with questionable intent who later become attackers overnight, sacking communities, causing mayhem, killing innocent people and destroying properties. The strategy of engaging community members in reporting suspicious movements and whistle blowing proved effective in managing the security challenges and ushering in relative peace in various parts of the State.”
“His statement therefore should not be misconstrued to mean a call for taking up arms but rather a call for more sensitivity and proactive networking with each other and security agencies to protect themselves and their communities against unprovoked attacks by armed groups”, Giwa argued.
He insisted that Governor Ishaku is a man of peace and could not haqve called on people to resort to arms. “Let it be made clear that Arc. Darius Dickson Ishaku has been a peace canvasser and has demonstrated so in his speeches and actions on all occasions and will not derail from his philosophy of peace as a prerequisite for development”.