The wave of attacks in Plateau State persists despite reassurances from government authorities. In a recent assault on the Zike community, Kimakpa, Kwall district of Bassa Local Government Area, forty individuals lost their lives.
According to Wakili Tongwe, a Kwall community leader, the attackers stormed the village in the early hours of Monday, firing indiscriminately at residents who fled in panic upon hearing gunfire.
Tongwe told Channels Television via phone that he, along with a team of vigilantes and security personnel, was on patrol in a nearby community when the attackers launched their assault.
Although security forces managed to repel the attackers, the damage had already been done, leaving thirty-six individuals dead on the spot and four more succumbing to injuries later.
Several residents also sustained gunshot wounds and are currently receiving treatment in the hospital.
Security agencies in the state have yet to comment on the incident, which comes less than two weeks after fifty-two people were killed in attacks on communities in the Bokkos Local Government Area of the North-Central state.
Sponsored, Genocidal
Plateau State has long been a hotspot for violence, with gunmen frequently attacking and displacing entire communities. During the Christmas celebrations in 2023, approximately 200 people were killed in a brutal assault on a predominantly Christian community. Similarly, in May of the previous year, about 40 people lost their lives, and homes were set ablaze in the town of Wase.
While experts often attribute the violence to resource disputes between farmers and herders, the state’s governor, Caleb Muftwang, suggests there are deeper underlying factors driving these attacks.
“I can tell you in all honesty that I cannot find any explanation other than genocide sponsored by terrorists. The question is, who are the persons behind the organisers of this terrorism? This is what the security agencies must help us to unravel,” the governor said on a recent edition of Channels Television’s Politics Today.
He said bandits have taken over 64 communities in the state.
“As I am talking to you, there are not less than 64 communities that have been taken over by bandits on the Plateau between Bokkos, Barkin Ladi, and Riyom local governments,” Muftwang said. “They have been taken over, renamed, and people are living there conveniently on lands they pushed people away to occupy.”
The Federal Government has been talking tough following the recent wave of attacks, vowing to flush out the assailants. The Inspector General of Police (IGP), Kayode Egbetokun, “ordered the immediate and comprehensive deployment of police tactical assets to the affected areas of the state”.