In the early 1990s, the dusty streets of Tudun Fera, one of the communities in Jos North Local Government, the heart of Jos in Plateau State, would have been the most tranquil in the city centre, but for an energetic first generation of secondary school leavers. Freshly out of school and ambitious, these boys cut a new, boisterous image for a neighbourhood that hitherto knew only the austere and modest lifestyle of the Islamic scholars that first settled there – their parents.
The youngsters played a lot of football to fill the vacuum their graduation from secondary school had created. But their eyes, buoyed by their individual aspirations and school certificates, were cast far afield. Among these youths searching for what to do was Tijjani Balarabe, the now infamous army captain who has continued to grab the headlines over an alleged order he gave soldiers from 93 Battalion in Taraba to kill police operatives transporting a suspected kidnap kingpin, Hamisu Bala, alias Wadume.
Three police officers from an elite detective unit, responsible for unearthing high-profile criminals evading arrest, as well as a civilian, were killed, while six others were injured on August 6.
The development resulted in a media war between the Police and the Nigerian Army, especially after the military labeled the detectives as “suspected kidnappers,” while explaining that the soldiers acted in reaction to a “distress call.” Wading in, President Muhammadu Buhari directed the Chief of Defence Staff to probe the killings. Wadume, who the police accused soldiers of freeing, was re-arrested in a hideout in faraway Kano State, a distance of over 700km, on Monday, August 19. (Dailytrust)
