Lagos — The body count from the perennial killing fields of Jos, Plateau State, does not matter anymore.

The number this time has been put at around 400. These were victims of the latest in the mindless slaughter of Nigerian citizens in Jos and some other parts of the Northern states by fellow Nigerians on grounds of ethnicity, religion or in the guise of seeking or protecting economic advantages and grazing grounds in predominantly farming communities.

This time, in what the authorities have dubbed a 'reprisal' attack, scores of Christian and animist Berom, living in Dogo Nahawa village cluster in Jos South local government area, were set upon in the early hours of Saturday and practically wiped out by suspected Muslim Fulani herdsmen.

Apparently this organised murder was a diabolical attempt to even the scores of last January 2010 killings by those who felt most at loss.

In fact, except for the number of casualties, events of last Saturday are all too familiar. The trajectories have all conformed to existing norm.

However, an added sickening twist to the recent Jos slaughters, (which began in the 1940s and 50s with murderous clashes between Igbo and Hausa-Fulani settlers over mineral mining rights) has been the deliberate targeting of the most vulnerable among target groups- children, women, the aged and infirm-who can hardly protect themselves.

The diabolical and frightening intent and motivation for this form of heartless attack on children and pregnant women may well have been to ensure that no children from the target group would survive and grow to seek revenge. And also, that no new children are born to replace the avengers, when women of child-bearing age are equally exterminated.

Under international protocols and laws governing human behaviour in conflict situations, like the Geneva Convention, what the alleged Fulani herdsmen did in Jos South local government area, qualifies to be called 'genocide'.

This may well be why the global community has risen in total condemnation of the latest Jos killings - from the Vatican to the United States and the EU nations-who appear to read the hidden, unstated, message between the lines in the method and patterns of so-called 'riots' in the Middle Belt region.

Any one familiar with the 'genocidal process' where target groups are, first demonized, reduced to sub-human status and then bureaucratically and mechanically exterminated would not fail to detect the same pattern in Jos against target groups. Certainly, the sight of tots, mothers and the aged being interred in mass graves in Jos last week would suggest that the dimensions of atrocities in Jos have taken a systemic nature.

As in previous cases, pious noises of outrage have been made by those in authority. Blames have been traded, leading to the replacement of the National Security Adviser, Gen. Muktar by General Gusau, for reasons that some saw as his failure to act on available intelligence to forestal the carnage.

Allegations have also been directed at the nation's Army whose troops where supposed to maintain a curfew emplaced after the January killings, but on whose watch the Jos murderers operated for close to four hours before retreating back to their bases.

Also official pronouncements have been made about government's determination to ensure that these sort of heartless killings do not occur again. Indeed, Acting President Goodluck Jonathan was reported to have vowed that this would not happen again.

This resolve would be tested by how diligently his government pursues the investigation, interdiction, prosecution and conviction of not just the foot-soldiers that do the actual killings but also the sponsors, the preachers of hate in the name of religion and those who secretly finance them.

It is only then that Nigerians and the rest of the world would begin to see this country in a more benign light and not as a country that has failed itself and its citizens.