This came on the heels of the earlier dusk-to-dawn curfew imposed on three local government areas— Bassa, Jos South and Jos North.

The development came as the result of ongoing security threats and tension being witnessed by residents in some parts of the state.

The state government said it was concerned about “the persisting tensions and reported attempts by some persons to take the laws into their hands by threatening to attack individuals and private facilities, as well as public property.”

The Governor’s Director of Press and Public Affairs, Makut Macham in a statement issued on Sunday morning, said: “Hours after announcing dusk-to-dawn curfew in three local government areas of Jos North, Jos South and Bassa, Governor Simon Lalong has directed the imposition of a 24-hour curfew in Jos North to contain further security threats. In the directive, the Governor said “from 2pm of today, Sunday, August 15, a 24-hour curfew will come into effect in Jos North Local Government Area. This is necessitated by security reports which indicate rising threats to the safety of lives and properties within the Local Government. The Governor, therefore, urges citizens to abide by the curfew and remain indoors to allow security agencies maintain law and order and deal with those bent on causing chaos.”

The curfew remains in force until further notice.

However, troops of Operation SAFE HAVEN, OPSH, on Sunday morning, rescued seven more victims of the recent attack on commuters in Jos.

Major Ishaku Takwa, the military Information Officer noted, “The victims have been taken to a safe place for medical attention and care. The troops are still on search operation to find the remaining missing victims.”

Lalong stated this on Saturday while interacting with journalists after a media tour of ongoing projects in the state.

He said “In our vision we said that if projects initiated by the previous administration are viable and is going to be useful to the people, we will continue and complete the project. Today we are using the new government house, I didn’t start the project but I completed it and the people of Plateau are using it. We have so far completed some abandoned projects and we are going to complete more of them because I hate hearing about abandoned projects, we went to the capital market, got the money needed to complete the projects and we told the contractor that he must finish the projects in time. We realize that the contractor is slow and we have issued him a notice of termination and you will see what will happen in the next three months,’’

In a meeting conducted via teleconference and chaired by the forum’s Chairman, Governor Simon Lalong of Plateau State on Monday April 13, the state governors said having a lockdown in the region is not possible as most of the residents are farmers who need to go to their farms.

A statement released by the Plateau state governor’s Director of Press and Public Affairs, Dr Macham Makut, said the governors in the meeting expressed disappointment that the region has few testing centers for the Coronavirus.

The statement in part reads “They (northern governors) agreed that at the moment, each state would adopt the measure suitable to its setting because total lockdown of the region will come at a very high cost since most of its citizens are farmers who need to go to farms since the rains have started. Another issue discussed by the northern governors was the issue of palliatives from the Federal Government where they regretted that so far, no state in the region had received a dime as special allocation despite the fact that some of them have recorded cases while others are making frantic efforts to prevent any outbreak, as well as prepare against any eventuality. This they observed has eaten deep into the pockets of the states as they have spent a lot of money already and may not be able to sustain this for a long time. Since prevention is better than cure, they canvassed that the Federal Government grant them some special funds just as it has done to other states. The northern governors lamented that the region has no testing centre, which is very disturbing. They resolved to again liaise with the Federal Government to ensure that each state at least gets one testing centre while highly populated ones get two. The governors also discussed the economic impact of COVID-19 on the region and decided that they needed to take a holistic look at the economic prospects of the region with a view to repositioning it for less reliance on federal allocation and to prepare for the future by diversifying to areas of comparative advantage such as agriculture, manufacturing, tourism and human capital development. They consequently set up a seven-man committee chaired by the Governor of Kebbi State, Atiku Bagudu, to fashion out the way forward. Other members are the governors of Kaduna, Sokoto, Kwara, Nasarawa, Jigawa, Gombe and Nasarawa states.”

The Plateau State Governor who disclosed this while declaring open a meeting on Peace, Security and Community Dialogue at the Government House in Jos, urged community leaders to examine what the conventional security agencies are doing with the aim of creating a synergy between their work and that of the community police structure.

Lalong said “Sadly, we are compelled to hold this meeting once again instead of ordinarily coming together to celebrate peaceful coexistence and prosperity of our land and its good people, as we were looking forward to during the forthcoming Forgiveness Day. Happily, we already have structures on ground which are in tandem with the Community Policing model such as the Operation Rainbow, Early warning System, Vigilante Volunteers and Community-based Intelligence Volunteers. We should also examine what the conventional security agencies such as the Police, State Security Service, Operation Safe Haven, Civil Defence and related agencies are doing in securing lives and properties in the State. What do we need to do in creating synergy between their work and that of the Community Policing structure in order to achieve better results.”