Information available to 247ureports.com indicates a renewed tension in the capital city of Jos appears to have enveloped the holiday mood as the resident of city prepare for the festivities of Sallah celebration. According to information received from security operative in the North Jos environs, security has been beefed up in the capital city against what is believed to be a weekend of possible violence.
Clerics in North Jos informed 247ureports.com of the renewed tension. They indicate that the renewed tension was the result of the head of a Muslim sect, the Izala sect, by the name Ali Zengre instruction to his followers to hold their Sallah prayer at the controversial Kabong Prayer ground. The Kabong prayer ground was the site that sparked the violence during the last Sallah season – which then spread across the city.
As can be recalled, during the last Sallah holiday, Islamic youths and their cleric leaders had gone to the Kabong prayer grounds for their religious rites. At the end of the rites, some reports indicated that violence met the Islamic youths as they existed the prayer grounds while other reports indicated that the Islamic youths are fired gunshots from the prayer grounds into the crown of Christian youths outside the prayer grounds. But in all, human deaths were incurred.
With another Sallah period around the corner, the Security agents in Jos, in the attempts to avert disturbing the relative peace, beckoned on the Islamic cleric to consider holding their prayers at another more appropriate location. But Islamic clerics have refused the plea.
Rather, one of the more influential and militant Islamic leader, the head of the Izala sect, Ali Zengre presently away on pilgrimage to Mecca, instructed his followers to go to the prayer ground for the prayers – defying warnings by security task force to keep off the area – thus cause fear and panic for the residents of the immediate vicinity of the prayer ground.
Agents of the State Security Services [SSS] stationed in Jos have also become concerned. They indicate that followers of the Islamic cleric, Ali Zengre have begun arriving to Jos from various parts of the country such as Gombe. One of the sources in SSS states that “they are known to be radicals and violent. The mercenaries from Gombe are in Jos on a mission. The security agencies already know that. The problem is that they are leaving there communities and walking three kilometers into a completely Christian community for this prayer. They were offered an alternative place for the prayer and they refused”.
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