Daily Independent (Lagos)
Wisdom Patrick, Onoja Audu And Segun Adeleye
17 March 2010
Abeokuta/Lagos/Jos — Fulani herdsmen have again broken loose on the Plateau, this time with greater vengeance and impunity, killing 13 people in Byei village, four of them children - and six women, one of them pregnant.
Several other villagers are missing.
Down South, Sagamu in Ogun State too had its own dose of violence. There, residents woke up on Wednesday to fear and anxiety as renewed hostilities between two cult groups - Eiye Confraternity and Black Axe - brought to six the number of those killed since last weekend.
The sixth person killed on Wednesday was Kehinde, popularly called "Simpata," the son of a former council Chairman, the late Sannu Ogunsanwo. Kehinded was shot dead in front of the family home on Ode-Lemo Road. Eyewitnesses said four cult members arrived the home at about 8 a.m. armed with guns and other dangerous weapons.
"Because of the presence of vigilant groups in Sagamu, cult members don't strike again in the night. They would strike in the day time and then escape," a source said.
Police Public Relations Officer, Muyiwa Adejobi, confirmed that Kehinde was "a member of one of the cult groups."
He said policemen have been ordered to fish out cult gangs and to fortify security in the area.
One survivor of the rampage on the Plateau on Wednesday narrated that the attack was led by soldiers who fired shots at homes before the herdsmen moved in for the latest slaughter, on top of the 500 they killed at Dogon-Nahawa on March 7.
"Plateau is under siege," Governor Jonah Jang lamented in Jos.
The attack was launched at about 2 a.m., reportedly on the backs of men in military camouflage who paved the way for the herdsmen to kill mainly children and women.
A pregnant woman was burnt with a child strapped to her back and with another child she covered with her chest to save him from the daggers of the insane men.
Most of the villagers died from machete and axe cuts and bullet wounds.
Some of the survivors were rushed to Vom Christian Hospital in Jos.
An eyewitness, Yohanna Dalyop, who lives in Byei, told reporters that before the herdsmen came into view, some people in military uniform had burnt homes.
He said he recognised the soldiers from a distance in the bush where he escaped to avoid being killed.
The pellets of the bullets the villagers picked up from the ground after the attack were those of Nigerian troops, who must be investigated, he insisted.
Jang, who spoke out at Government House when he hosted the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) President, Ayo Oritsajafor, said the violence is the handiwork and some Nigerian personalities and their foreign collaborators, all of whom Abuja should investigate.
"These days whenever I wake up in the morning I get bad news about events happening in this state," he lamented.
He woke this morning with "very low morale," he said, because when he thought the state was beginning to get over its crisis, another village was attacked, "leaving behind pain and anguish" among the people.
"Plateau is under siege, and I know that the attacks have gone beyond misunderstanding among the people of the state themselves.
"It is a plan by some key people in this nation, and some in the international community are involved because some people are using the blood of human beings to make money.
"Whenever they attack us they send them messages that they need more money. Sometimes the burnt houses that belong to the natives are misrepresented by these attackers to their backers as being their own houses that were burnt so that they can send money to them.
"And some millions of Dollars are coming into this country for this battle."
Jang reiterated that the battle for Plateau is not for him alone but for the entire country, adding that his prayer is that God, in His infinite mercy, should "arise and expose" those behind the carnage.
"We cannot continue this way, and I don't want to continue to talk about the security personnel. Three days ago, I had a meeting with GOC 3rd Amoured Division Jos, Lt-General Saleh Maina, and the rest of them.
"Just this morning, a call came that there was another attack. Well, it is my constituency, the military; but I will leave the rest to Abuja to judge."
Jang warned that something must be done or else when the people feel that they are not protected, "they have to arise to defend themselves, the end of which will not be good for this nation."
Oritsajafor told Jang the heart of the church is with Plateau State and is praying that God should expose all those behind the mayhem.
He urged the government and people not to allow themselves to be defeated by "evil forces," and to ensure that peace returns to the state.
Riyom Council Chairman, Simon Madkon, told Daily Independent that the attack confirmed his fears that mercenaries are being brought to fight his people.
State House of Assembly Information Committee Chairman, Emmanuel Danboyi Jugul, said his kinsmen no longer have confidence in the soldiers sent to protect them, and they should be withdrawn.
However, the Inspector General of Police, Ogbonnaya Onovo, confirmed in a telephone interview from Abuja that he has ordered a 24-hour aerial patrol of the state.
"Two helicopters are patrolling every nook and cranny of the state and communicating with the 2,000 policemen on the ground. There has been a mop up in some parts of the state, with some suspects arrested. The important things is that the police are on top of the situation," he said.
The Joint Military Task Force (JMTF) reacted by saying that it had averted another massacre at Baten village in the same Riyom Council.
A statement issued by JMTF Commandant, Brigadier General Donald Oji, said the assailants attacked Byei and Baten simultaneously at about 1 a.m. but were warded off by troops at Baten.
According to Oji, no casualty was reported at Baten but nine people were killed at Byei, and 13 houses were burnt in both villages before the arrival of soldiers.
He said seven suspects have been arrested while troops are on the trail of others.
On March 7, about 500 Berom natives at Dogon-Nahawa villages, five kilometres south of Jos, were massacred by Fulani herdsmen who raided the community through a border village in Bauchi State.
Neighbours joined the villagers to wail as the bodies of elderly women and children littered everywhere among the dead.
Pockets of attacks had also been recorded at Heipang in Barkin Ladi Council some days earlier while Riyom Council had been attacked by Fulani herdsmen in the previous two weeks.
Information Commissioner, Greg Nyelong, declared wanted, former Secretary of Plateau State Muslim Welfare Board, Saleh Bayari, for allegedly inciting the herdsmen.
He described the attacks on March 7 as "ethnic cleansing" carried out against the Berom, the ethnic group to which Jang belongs.
On March 9, Jang alleged that the Army's indifference to his distress calls led to the murder of the Dogon-Nahawa villagers.
If troops now in charge of security in the state had lived up to expectation, the carnage would have been averted, he said, and asked the soldiers to double their efforts and avoid a recurrence or leave the state.
At a protest rally in Abuja on March 11, Plateau State Women Development Association (PSWDA), Secretary General, Zipporah Kpamor, handed a petition to House of Representatives Speaker, Dimeji Bankole, demanding "a change of the security chiefs" on the Plateau because "they have not guaranteed any security for us, we have lost confidence in them."
Kpamor accused Maina and the Chief of Army Staff, Lt-General Abdurahman Danbazzau, as well as the Bauchi State Government of complicity in the killings.
But Maina riposted that public criticism of the Army over the incident is unfair and unguided.
He told a press conference at the Maxwell Kobe Cantonment on March 11 that the military as an institution is the last line of defence for the people, and it has been doing this since the crisis began.
Maina maintained that the conflict had started before he was posted to Jos, and the military has no tribe or religion for anyone to allege that soldiers have taken sides.
He said he commanded the troops that fought Boko Haram in Maiduguri, where most of the casualties were Muslim like himself.
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