Plateau governor, Simon Lalong
By Raymond Gukas, Jos
The Plateau State government has apologised to Citizens for its harsh comments over COVID-19 order defaulters.
The state commissioner of information and communication, Dan Manjang offered the apology in a press statement where he withdrew the word “ruthlessly ” with “strictly.”
He said, “you will recall that in the course of the week, I issued an announcement with respect to the flagrant disregard to government order by the public with regards to the Presidential Order imposing a curfew on the country between the hours of 8.00 p.m. and 6.00 a.m. of each day.
“Furthermore, the statement reminded the public of the mandatory need to wear masks failure of which the security agents saddled which such enforcement were called upon to deal ruthlessly with the situation.
“It has come to my notice that the choice of word “ruthlessly” has not gone down well with the public, more so with the current gory happenings in the state”
According to him, he had made a “correction on the statement replacing the word “ruthlessly” with “strictly ” but regret that the corrected script did not get the wide circulation” the first one did, and It was in the light this that “I apologise for the use of the word ruthlessly and hereby withdraw.”
It is recalled that the commissioner’s earlier statement drew a lot of condemnation from the public who viewed “ruthlessly ” as too harsh in a democratic order.
And to further compound the situation, the statement came at a time the citizens were preparing for a showdown with the military task force on Jos crisis, whose personnel gunned down a 300 level student of the university of Jos in the lockdown.
