A passenger luxury bus conveying about 50 passengers from Lagos to Yola was this morning (Saturday) attacked by irate youth in Jos. The bus was attacked along Bauchi road, a Muslim dominated area of the city, when it stopped to allow some passengers disembark.

The bus was looted and torched by youth suspected to be Muslims. This led to confusion as passengers and passers-bye scampered for safety. The incident led to renewed tension in the city. However, the Special Task Force (STF) later moved in to restore order and rescue some of the stranded passengers. The attack on the bus is suspected to be a reprisal attack following a report that six Muslims were killed in Mangu local government area of the state while returning from a wedding party on Friday night.

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A passenger who identified himself as Baraba Patinah who was rescued by the STF said he would have been lynched if the taskforce had not arrived at the scene on time. He said he escaped into a house and a lady there called the attention of the mob to him and pointed out to them where he was hiding.

Crisis political

He said, “I ran into a house trying to hide. But a woman was calling out to them in Hausa that ‘he’s here’. I understand the language that was when I saw a gutter and crawled out and I saw the military. If not I don’t know what would have happened to me.”

At the STF headquarters, the Commissioner of Police, Plateau State Command Abdulrahman Akano and the commander of the STF, blamed the crisis on politics, citing disagreement between rival thugs of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) during its congress.

“The party went on meeting without alerting us. Where they had said they would hold their meeting was not where they held it. So how they arrived here I don’t know. And that’s how they brought thugs and unleashed them on one another.” Mr. Akano said.

The commissioner said he would invite leaders of the party for more investigation into the matter.

In the interim, the commander of the STF, Hassan Umaru, a brigadier-general, while reacting to whether the crisis was related to the incident in Mangu said, “There was a report yesterday from Mangu. Our sectors 7 and 8 have gone round to see if we can find traces of people. But until it is confirmed, there’s nothing to tell to tell for now.”

source : 234next.com