•How family of five was mercilessly murdered in Plateau
•We were alerted that gunmen were coming, but nobody cared – Residents
From Jude Owuamanam, Jos
The Mallams were a family five in Kwagas Layir in Mangu Local Government area of Plateau State. They couldn’t have imagined that none of them would live to see the end of the month.
But they became the latest casualties of the mindless killings that had become the lot of Mangu since April last year when gunmen, said to be Fulani killer herders, invaded the area, killing people in their hundreds.
Chilling details have emerged of how the family members were burnt alive by marauders who invaded Kwagas Layir and Sabon Kasuwa areas of Mangu Local Government area of Plateau State.
Dauda Mallam, a retired civil servant, his sister, Laitu Mallam, daughters, Beatrice and Dabita Mallam and his son Emmanuel Mallam, were butchered and their bodies packed into their house which was then set ablaze by the gunmen.
Dauda’s sister, Julya Gwamzhi, was full of tears when she gave a heartbreaking account of how her brother and his children were brutally murdered.
Indeed this is not the first time that Gwamzhi had suffered from this heartbreak. On October 19, 2023, Chalya, a niece to her husband, Danjuma, was similarly killed in Barnawa area of Kaduna when she was attacked by hoodlums.
Chalya was taking an early morning exercise by 7 am that penultimate day when the hoodlums accosted her and macheted her to death in cold blood.
This time, the pain was of a greater dimension as she lost her brother, sister and her brother’s three children in more bizarre circumstances.
Getting Gwamzhi to talk on the circumstances that led to her family’s demise was a herculean task indeed. At first, she refused, as she said it was hard for her to recall those chilling moments. However more prodding and show of empathy made her to open up.
According to her, Dauda, a retired staff of the Ministry of Agriculture, and a native of Bakwi in Langtang North Local Government area of the state, had suffered a stroke early last year, having lost his wife a year before. Therefore he built a house at Kwagas Layir, an area dominated by the Fulani, where he hoped to spend the rest of his life
“Dauda was bedridden with stroke as a result of the shock he suffered after losing his wife two years ago. Therefore he was permanently at home and being looked after by one of his sisters, Patu, and his children.
“When the trouble started by 9.30 am, Laitu was taking her 10-year-old daughter to school. So when they heard the commotion, they all ran back into the house.
“They called us and said that they were being attacked and called for help. We made frantic efforts to reach security agents but to no avail. We heard their shout and pleas for mercy. But the attackers were unyielding. They collected their phones and after that we were not hearing them anymore.
“Stories we heard from one of their neighbours, who smuggled the 10-year old out of the house through the window, was that after killing them, the attackers dragged their bodies inside the house and set the house on fire.
“In fact, not only them, we heard many people were killed that Wednesday morning. Their charred remains are still there and waiting for evacuation for mass burial. Nobody can go there now because the situation is still tense.”
Mrs. Solome Shekar also had a similar experience. She said that when the trouble started, she quickly realised that her husband, who was equally bedridden, could be at the mercy of the terrorists. So she quickly moved her husband out of the house to a safer place and asked her son to look after the house. However, according to her, her son is still unaccounted for.
“The killers went on a killing spree. Nobody was spared, especially women, children and the elderly.”
After the attack at Kwagas Layir, the attackers headed to Kwahaslalek village (Behind NYSC camp at Jakatai, Mangu Local Government area) about 12:30am where they killed 25 people mostly women and children. Many others sustained gunshots and houses were burnt.
The renewed onslaught on Mangu came after Governor Caleb Mutfwang had imposed a 24-hour curfew. The attackers were said to have first invaded Sabon Gari on Tuesday in what residents described as a distraction so that people’s attention would be shifted from the villages. So when the real attack started in Kwagas Layir and Kwahaslalek, it took many residents unaware.
An eyewitness said: “About midnight there was sporadic gunshots and the women ran to one compound for safety. Unfortunately, the terrorists went there and killed them while the men were keeping vigil outside the community.
“The victims were killed at a community leader’s house where they ran for refuge. The Mairana, Kinat and other communities in Mangu Halle District and those on the borders of Mangu and Barkin Ladi Local government areas are deserted now.”
However residents of Mangu appeared to have got some hints on the fate that was to befall them hours before the attack, when a security alert was said to have been raised by TruthNigeria, a non-governmental organisation.
According to the organisation, a large convoy of gunmen, two or three on a bicycle, had taken off from mainly locations dominated by the herders – Marit, Exland, Josho, Mahanga, Mushere, and Ruku.
The security alert, released at 1:37 pm, on Tuesday, January 23, 2024, and entitled, ‘Increased threat in Mangu LGA – Bandit convoy detected,’ said: “TruthNigeria has received credible information indicating an escalation of the ongoing attacks in Mangu LGA. A convoy of armed Fulani, originating from Marit, Exland, Josho, Mahanga, Mushere, and Ruku, has been sighted. The convoy, composed of motorbikes with three individuals on each, is en route to Mangu LGA and neighbouring villages in Bokkos.”
The security alert advised residents and security personnel to exercise heightened vigilance and take immediate precautions, stay indoors, avoid unnecessary travel, and report any suspicious activities to the relevant authorities.
What has now become a recurring decimal in the three-decade crises in Plateau State reared its ugly head in April shortly after the 2023 general elections, in which Caleb Mutfwang, an indigene of Mangu, won.
The bigger dimension was to occur on Christmas Eve, where more than 200 people were killed by rampaging gunmen who overran three local government areas of Barkin Ladi, Bokkos and Mangu in the state.
Since then, more blood has continued to flow as gunmen ran rampage, massacring more people, wounding many others and burning hundreds of houses.
Langtang people mourn Dauda Mallam amd family
Ngwang ishi O’Tarok, (NIO), the umbrella body of Tarok nationality in Langtang has condemned the killing of the family of Dauda Mallam, a native of Bakwi in Langtang North.
In a statement signed by Nangor Ndam, NIO secretary, the group said its attention had been drawn to the burning alive of a Tarok family of five in Mangu on Wednesday following the outbreak of crisis in the area.
The statement said that the Leadership of NIO, led by Amb Nanpon Danjuma Sheni, was fully aware of the incident and had been in contact with the security agencies handling the investigations.
Lack of faith in security agencies
The recurring crises in Plateau have once more reignited the lack of faith by the citizens on the military to continue to keep peace in the state.
Operation Safe Haven (OPSH), a joint internal security outfit was set up as a result of the 2001 crisis, which claimed thousands of lives.
In the recent crisis in Mangu, there had been accusations of military personnel chasing the locals away as the gunmen, wielding various weapons unleash terror on hapless citizens. Many commentators have accused the soldiers of taking sides. OPSH, in one instance, had to withdraw one of its commanders in charge of Sector 7 in Bokkos for failure to respond to distress calls during the Bokkos massacre
In one of the videos, the Chairman Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) Mangu Chapter, Reverend Timothy Daluk, was seen accusing the military of direct involvement in shielding Fulani extremists.
But the Acting Director, Defence Information, Brig. Gen. Tukur Gusau, described the allegations made in the video as baseless and untrue.
But the strident allegations had prompted residents to demand a withdrawal of security agencies so that they could defend themselves. Many locals have serially accused security agencies, especially the military, of taking sides with Fulani herders to unleash terror on them.
A rights activist, Makut Alfred Mashat, said that recent attacks in Bokkos, Mangu, and Barkin Ladi have exposed a deep rift between the Nigerian Army and local communities in Plateau.
According to him, news reports and witness accounts detail specific instances where army actions fuelled tensions or failed to protect civilians.
In a Facebook post, he suggested some reforms be put in place.
Such reforms, he advocated, should include thorough investigations into alleged Army misconduct and holding individuals accountable, improved training on community engagement and cultural sensitivity for soldiers deployed in conflict zones, increased transparency and communication between the army and local communities, and enhanced collaboration between the army, mobile police, and local security forces to implement a comprehensive security strategy.