How to end Jukun-Tiv crisis

•Criminal elements behind crisis- ‎JDAN
•Gov. Ishaku has failed Southern Taraba

Experts and community leaders have advised on possible ways of ending the aged long crisis between the Jukuns and Tivs living in Taraba state.
More than a hundred of people has been killed and properties worth millions destroyed in the ongoing wave of communal crisis among Tiv and Jukun communities in Southern Taraba.
Some community leaders in the state said both ethnic groups must fish out criminal elements among them sponsoring the violence.
 Leaders and elders in the southern zone said the people are tired of t daily killings and crisis but some "people within and outside the governments are frustrating every effort to achieve peace in the zone."
Respondent said the government should take drastic measures in ensuring peace in the zone. 
Riman Tsokwa said Government must serve as a catalyst. Without being bias provide an enabling environment for peace.
"Government should take a proactive measure by coming up punishment to erring side. This should be with severe consequence on the traditional fathers."
He noted that traditional rulers in the zone should engage all mai-angwas and palace guards for peace to thrive in the zone.
He noted that “Indigenes and settlers dichotomy will continue to live with, we can only shift ground for peace. Recognize our difference and begin to live with it and the earlier the better.
No man goes to war and come back without losing a brother as such peace is a sinequanone or prerequisite to community development.”
Governorship candidate of the All Blending Party ABP in the last general election, Kefas Sule called for scaling up of conventional security deployment on the side of Taraba and Benue States to bring the current crisis under control.
He said the number of security personnel available for deployments have always been in short supply especially with the proliferation of insecurity situations in different parts of the country.
"But this can be surmounted if there is adequate logistics to boost operational efficiency. For example sustained frequent patrol and systematic surveillance of crisis spots will make the shortage of personnel less significant. Attackers are embolden when the know their target will not receive early intervention from security agencies."
He said once the situation is stabilized to an extent, "the process of dialogue should resume immediately. As it is said, it is better to continue to jaw jaw than to war war."
He also called on religious institutions to evolve new strategies for helping resolve the clashes. "Thankfully members of the two tribes predominantly belong to the NKST and CRCN who have one umbrella body, TEKAN. Their leaders must look for new strategies to make peace happen."
Founder of the Luka Agbu Foundation, Mathias Agbu said the state should look for innovative ways of ending the conflicts between Jukuns and Tivs in the Southern region.
His Foundation has launched an essay competition for Jukun and Tiv youths with the topic: Finding lasting Solutions to the endless  Jukun/Tiv Conflict.
President of the Jukuns Development Association of Nigeria JDAN, Bako Benjamin   lamented that criminal elements have taken over the crisis in a bit to appear as ethnic war lords, insisting that the Tivs are best neighbor of the Jukuns.
“ We hadn't the slightest iota of any intention whatsoever to confront the Tiv people in any arm conflict, and we still do. If there's any Jukun neighbour that Jukun people feel most comfortable with, love their women,love their food and drink together with, it's the Tivs.
I am still confident that the larger population feel same way. Intelligence reports at our disposal still point fingers of accusation in the direction of criminal elements, which the Tiv communities bordering us boosts of large numbers of them, infiltrating the conflict with the sole aim of escalating it for their own criminal intention.”
The Nom Ivaan of Mbawar, Chief Emmanuel Ortswen  lamented that some jukun leaders have become protagonists of the indigene settler ideology, using their vantage positions to promote hate speeches, profiling the Tiv for annihilation and fanning the embers of this needless crisis. “This disposition emboldens criminally minded elements in taking arms against Tiv people, in the name of protecting the Jukun’s God-given ancestral lands and natural resources.

 I’m leaving the protagonist of this ideology to their consciences. Also, I will not glorify the position of these devilish ideologists with a genealogical background of the Tiv people of Wukari Local Government. But the fact remains that, the Tiv people are as old as Wukari LGA itself, even as the Tivs of Wukari are more indigenous in Wukari than some of these Jukun people who are only happy when Tivs and Jukuns are burning and killing each other.
He noted that while the Wukari Traditional Council “under our father  Aku Uka of Wukari is building bridges of peace by appointing Tiv as Village Heads, you the political class are busy burning these bridges by refusing the Tiv their political  right of being involve in the administration of our dear Local Government.
Let me use this medium to remind the facilitators and sponsors of this conflict that nobody wins this kind of war. If the Jukuns succeeded in wiping the population of the Tivs of Wukari, but it is not a victory because they have added no value on their nation.  Neither is it a victory for the Tivs, if the entire Jukun kingdom is obliterated. With our social cultural composition, any injury for the Jukun man will directly or vicariously affect a Tiv man and vice versa.”