Usual Sing-Song: Outrage Over Plateau Killings

 By Owei Lakemfa

In the 2023 Christmas period running from December 23-25, armed assailants in co-ordinated attacks wiped out 20 communities in  Magu, Bokkos and Bakin areas of Plateau State. They killed over 200, injured a minimum 500 and put  over 10,000 in flight.

The headlines  expressing ‘Outrage over Plateau killings’ are tragically, familiar and might  have as well been cast ten, fifteen years ago. The perpetrators are same; a trained, vicious, co-ordinated  bunch, some  assembled from  West and Central Africa states.

In January 2019, President Muhammadu Buhari in his interview on Arise Television traced the identity of some of  this militia as youths  coming from Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Chad and  Central African Republic who had been recruited into the Libyan military by Ghadafi: “So, when the opposition in Libya succeeded in killing him, they arrested some and they did what they did to them. 

The rest escaped with their orphans and we encounter some of them in the North-East and they are all over the place (Nigeria) now organising attacks.”  So, that some of these armed militia are not Nigerians, is an established fact.

In 2016,  Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai also confirmed this. He told the press that: “Fulani herdsmen from across Africa bring their cattle down towards the Middle Belt and Southern Nigeria.” to graze.  

El-Rufai added: “Some of them were from Niger, Cameroon, Chad, Mali and Senegal. Fulanis are in 14 African countries and they traverse this country with the cattle. So many of these people were killed, cattle lost (in the 2011 election violence) and they organised themselves and came back to revenge. So a lot of what was happening in Southern Kaduna was actually from outside Nigeria…”  

As it is in Kaduna, so also is it in Benue, Niger and Plateau States; the  collective victims are same, the areas attacked are same, the preferred weapons; guns and machetes, are same.

What many Nigerians may not know is that this militia, known in the Central African Republic as the Muslim Seleka, had in March 2013, successfully overthrown President Francois Bozize.  The militia head, Michel Djotodia made himself President on April 13, 2013. Despite this, the militia, in seeking more lands, continued the massacre of other people until  a general uprising overthrew the regime on January 10, 2014 and the militia fled mainly across Chad into  Nigeria.

So, when the Governors of the six  North-Central states said the Christmas massacres  were  not some  herders-farmers clashes, but are actually Rwanda-type massacres, they were  saying the truth. A truth about land grab which many do not want made public.

The 2015 advent of the  Buhari administration led to more attacks by this militia which wants to establish a homeland in Nigeria as Israel established in the Palestine. 

Within three years of the Buhari  government, this armed militia  had attacked, cleansed, occupied and renamed 54  communities in Plateau State. The inhabitants  had either been killed,  forced to relocate  or become internally displaced persons, IDPs. These were widely reported in the media with the Vanguard Newspapers titling its report: “Plateau shocker: Herdsmen rename communities grabbed from indigenes”.

The reaction of the Buhari administration to these massacres was not to stop them or take back the occupied communities.  Rather, it was to evolve a programme to  take more  lands from the indigenes and settle the militia. It called the project ‘Ruga or Rugga which is the Fulani  word for human settlement. It is also an acronym for Rural Grazing Area.

When the indigenes refused to give their lands for Rugga or ranching, the Buhari administration told them that giving up their lands  was a better option than death. In 2018, the Special Adviser to President Buhari on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, speaking on an AIT morning programme in response to a question on the peoples’ ancestral attachment to land said: “Ancestral attachment? You can only have ancestral attachment when you are alive. If you are talking about ancestral attachment, if you are dead, how does the attachment matter? …So, if your state genuinely does not have land for ranching, it is understandable; not every state will have land for ranches. But where you have land and you can do something, please do for peace. What will the land be used for if those who own it are dead at the end of the day?”

Since there is a  refusal by the Nigerian Government to accept the truth, after every massacre such as the December 2023 Christmas attacks, the reactions are same. The various state offices and groups would express outrage. The Presidency will order that the perpetrators should be fished out. The National Assembly will observe one minute silence and pass a resolution to invite the security chiefs. The Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN and the Nigeria Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, NSCIA will express horror and demand justice.

The military chiefs will announce soldiers are on clearance operations to nab the attackers. The police will say, calm has been restored and the people should go about their normal duties. The international community would weigh in with their expressions of sympathy and condemnation.  The intelligence services from the State Security Services, National Intelligence Agency to the Military intelligence who collectively failed to prevent the attack or did not respond quickly, would be silent. Then after some time, the voices go silent,  waiting for the next massacre.

Now, it is not as if the Plateau and Benue peoples, and indeed other Nigerians who have  been attacked by the militia, terrorists or  bandits are cowards who cannot fight back. They can. In fact the bulk of the Nigerian army used to be provided by indigenes of Benue-Plateau, so they have people trained in warfare. The problem is the Nigerian government  which while being incapable   of protecting the populace, would not allow them arm themselves for self-defence. Even where they are able to source a few arms, the Federal Government sends security agencies to search their homes and confiscate such weapons leaving the people defenceless. In contrast, the militia men  who live in the forests or are constantly in motion, sometimes crossing the borders, are not disarmed, and if anything, continue to acquire deadlier weapons.

So the first steps should include sending the armed forces to retake all communities seized by the armed groups and move our people from the IDP camps back to their ancestral homes. Also,  as quickly as possible, establish Community and State Police. The skeletal structures such as Civilian JTF, Amotekun and the official vigilante groups, already exist for such police. Also, the Nigerian populace need to be mobilised and trained to defend their lives, homes and families.  Otherwise, we will be collectively endangering ourselves, democracy and our country.

*Lakemfa is a commentator on public issues