When will Plateau’s cycle of killings stop?

Since 1994 when former military Head of State, General Ibrahim Babangida administration created Jos North Local Government Area to arrest the acrimony between Berom and Hausa/Fulani natives, the cycle of killings in Plateau State has continued. Jos, for the first time, was turned into a hellhole in September 2001 when the natives, the Berom and the Hausa/Fulani settlers squared it up over the ownership of the city.

In the crisis that ensued, hundreds of lives were lost while thousands of people were displaced and their sources of livelihood destroyed. Since then the cycle of crisis in the state has continued unabated. In Jos alone, there have been series of crises for a very long time; these upheavals have more religious and ethnic colourations.

Apart from Jos, the state capital, surrounding local government areas such as Barakin Ladi, Jos South, Riyom, Bassa, Bokko and Mangu have not known peace as a result of incessant clashes between the natives and the Fulani herdsmen. The episodes of crises in the councils have left many communities and villages deserted and provided cause for further segregation.

The most devastating of all was the Dogo Nahawa incident in 2010 which claimed the lives of about 500 people in a midnight raid by gunmen suspected to be Fulani herdsmen. The attackers didn’t spare women and children, even babies who were yet to be named were brutally killed in the attack. Nigerian Tribune findings revealed that from 2010 to date, attacks on both sides of the divides (between the natives and the Fulani herdsmen) have been raging from one community to another.

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Nigerian Tribune findings revealed that this year alone, no fewer than 50 people had been killed in Bokko Local Government Area as a result of clashes between the natives and the herdsmen. In one of the attacks, a traditional ruler, Saf Kulere, was killed along with his driver. In Miango, Bassa Local Government Area, the chairman, Irigwe Development Association, Sunday Abdul said the association has since lost count of the people killed.

In Berom speaking local government areas, Barakin-Ladi, Riyom and some parts of Jos South Local Government Area, there has been unending cases of killing. It has been a blame game between the Berom people and Fulani herdsmen.

A source close to the apex body of all the associations in Berom land, the Berom Educational and Cultural Organisation (BECO) said close to 200 people have been killed this year alone and many villages sacked and occupied by the attackers suspected to be herdsmen.

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However, in  a semblance of 2010 Dogo Nahawa attack, gunmen in the their large number swooped on 12 communities in Barakin Ladi and Riyom local government areas on Saturday to the early hours of Sunday this week. There, over 200 people were killed in what could be described as an organised midnight attack. The villages attacked were Razat, Raku, Tanabu, Tison, Kakuruk, Nghar, Heipang, Shonong and others within the area.

Survivors of the attack said the gunmen were armed with sophisticated weapons such as AK45, sub machine guns mounted on pickup vehicles, adding that the organised attacks were carried out simultaneously in all the villages at the same time.

A village head who craved anonymity, said after people were gunned down, some of the assailants went about in the course of the night to machete those in pain, adding that little children were not spared.

“Apart from this, there is quite a number of people recuperating in various hospitals both in Jos and Barakin-Ladi as a result of deep cuts inflicted on them by the attackers,” he said.

A source close to the affected villages revealed that dead bodies still litter the villages while attempts by people from the neighbouring communities to access those places are being frustrated by law enforcement agencies on ground, insisting that such moves could further escalate the ugly situation.

It was gathered that there could be the eventual outbreak of an epidemic considering the decomposing state of many of the bodies that still litter the affected communities.

It will be recalled that in the same Barakin Ladi Local Government Area, four Fulani herdsmen returning from a cattle market in Jos South council area were burnt two days before the attack on the 12 villages in the area, thereby making the latest attack look like a reprisal.

However, the chairman, North Central zone of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), Danladi Ciroma, condemned the attacks but added that the attacks were retaliatory.

Sunday Abdul who is the president of Irigwe Development Association dismissed the claim in certain quarters that cattle rustling on the part of the natives was responsible for attacks on the villages. “When you talk of cattle rustling, the Fulanis are good at this than any other tribe. In fact in most cases they deliberately allow their cattle to move into farms as a way of fermenting trouble. The killings go beyond this,” he said

According to him, the purpose of the attack was nothing more than land grabbing, insisting that it was a ploy to chase people out of their ancestral lands and occupy them by fiat. He added that many villages had been sacked by the Fulani herdsmen on the plateau and consequently occupied.

“Assuming cattle were rustled, is it an excuse to kill humans in retaliation? From all indications, these herdsmen are more concerned about their cattle than the lives of humans,” he said.

Secretary General, Berom Educational and Cultural Organisation, Mr Davou Choji said there were Jihadist tendencies in the attacks against the Berom nation and other tribes in Plateau State, adding that the Fulanis had repeatedly boasted that they would capture Berom land by all means.

According to him, “We don’t support cattle rustling; it is just a lie. In both Brakin-Ladi and Riyom local government areas, there are several villages and communities that have been sacked by the herdsmen and occupied accordingly; so these attacks are nothing but jihad and land grabbing.”

The state chairman of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association, Mallam Nuru Mohammed said prior to the latest attacks, no fewer than 20 Fulani herdsmen were killed in Barakin-Ladi and Bassa local government areas alone, adding that this alone was capable of igniting problems.

He said so many Fulani herdsmen had lost their lives including cattle in the affected areas. He added that despite the atrocities and assaults against the herdsmen, they were being killed without any provocation, debunking the allegation of land grabbing.

Another resident, Dr Abdullahi Babale said one of the reasons the cycle of killings continued unabated in the state was as a result of penchant for reprisal anytime such killings occurred.

A highly competent security source in the state further told the Nigerian Tribune that it was always difficult for security agencies to access most of the villages often attacked because of the hilly and rocky topographies.

“What the security agencies need are helicopters to comb most of these places anytime the need arises. In some cases, it requires close to four hours to get to the scene. The problem has always been accessibility. Like the latest attacks, it took us close to five hours to get to most of the affected villages,” he said.

He also added that since there were peculiar communities under constant attacks, the state government should construct motorable roads for easy accessibility, adding that the government along with security agencies should persuade the herdsmen to vacate all the communities and villages they have occupied to pave way for the return of the natives.

From all indications, it is glaring that most of the challenges of succeeding administrations in Plateau State since the inception of this dispensation has been insecurity. There is no government since 1999 that has had a hitch free administration.

It will be recalled that when the administration of Governor Simon Lalong came into power, it established the Peace Building Agency to address the insecurity, it inherited from the previous administration. The agency achieved some success by reducing the level of insecurity but the hostilities between the Fulanis and the natives still continued unabated.

There is no doubt this looks like an uphill task for both the state and federal governments in the years ahead.