Citizens Credit TruthNigeria Security Alert For Saving Lives
Jos—A mass of armed terrorists at brigade strength were turned back by a tenacious band of citizen guards on July 26 on hills 74 miles south of Jos, Nigeria, TruthNigeria has learned.
The 9-hour fire fight between an estimated 1,000 terrorists and approximately 100 local volunteers armed with self-made shotguns ended at 5 p.m. on July 26 after the arrival of two Nigerian army armored personnel carriers (APCs), according to the military and local sources. The attackers were radicalized Muslim men who seek to ethnically cleanse the majority Christian native farmers in Plateau State.
Truth Nigeria first reported this battle during the afternoon of 26 July as bullets were flying. https://truthnigeria.com/2023/07/alert-reports-if-battle-south-of-jos-nigeria/
The report was an update to its advance warnings of impending attacks in the region variously published on TruthNigeria.com between 22 and 25 July. https://truthnigeria.com/2023/07/alert-armed-militants-sighted/
A town leader in the area described the encounter as a “full war” which lasted the whole day before the military arrived and spurred the retreat of the invaders. Several attackers were killed in the battle according to a military spokesman in Jos.
As of July 29, at least nine volunteers, dubbed “vigilantes,” are getting medical treatment and two are missing and may be dead, according to Asabar Daklak, leader of the volunteer team. As of July 29, vigilante groups are manning camps to continue protecting villages while the military is positioned 5 miles away in the town of Mangun, the county’s second-largest city, TruthNigeria determined after a site visit.
Major Gen. Taoreed Lagbaja, Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff, launched a special military operation in Mangu on July 22, according to Radio France International. Gen Lagbaja brought a force of 300 soldiers to Mangu, pledging to put an end to the incessant bloody attacks on dozens of majority Christian villages that have claimed the lives of 350 citizens since May 16. At least 80,000 residents are currently sheltering at Internally Displaced Persons Camps according to local officials. As many as 18,000 IDP’s are living in the area of a primary school in Mangu.
Truth Nigeria saves lives
The battle started in the early hours of July 26 in the southern approach to Pantilong, a community of 2,000 residents 5 miles southwest of Mangun, Daklak told Truth Nigeria. The attackers who encamped near the village on the night of July 25, attempted to launch a simultaneous assault on the village from four different directions the following day, Daklak said.
“They were in their thousands,” Daklak said. “They split themselves into four groups of about 500 each and started shooting and advancing towards the village around 8 am,” said Daklak. (TruthNigeria concludes the invading force had 1,000 fighters.)
“They had AK47 rifles and sniper rifles because we saw the expended bullet shells. They were more equipped and had more fighters than us, but with the help of God, we chased them back through the same routes they followed to come here,” he said.
The vigilantes positioned themselves on hilltops behind rock walls and fired on the terrorists walking toward the village in brushy ravines. Although outnumbered, the vigilantes made the best use of homemade single-shot guns, hunting rifles and improvised canons that fired petrol bombs loaded with shrapnel, according to Daklak, who credited TruthNigeria’s advance warnings for giving the volunteers preparatory time.
In the latest alert shortly before dark on 25 July, TruthNigeria reported that terrorists were mustering in staging areas in Bokkos County, which borders Mangu County on its western perimeter, as well as in the town of Mahanga in Riyom County and at locations in neighboring States, warning of attacks on eastern communities in Mangu County. https://truthnigeria.com/2023/07/alert-armed-militants-sighted/
“We received the alert from Saturday (22 July) that they were mobilizing from Wamba in Nasarawa, some from Taraba and others from Bokkos and neighboring areas,” said Daklak.
“Based on the alert, they were supposed to attack on Saturday and Sunday, but they did not come until Tuesday (25 July) because they came from afar,” he added.
According to him, the volunteers, composed chiefly of untrained young men, formed a rock barrier on a hilltop approach to Pantilong on July 25 while women, children and the elderly sought refuge elsewhere.
Motivation for the attack
“It was a full war,” said the Mayor of Mangun, Job Ali Damiyal, to Truth Nigeria. “It was a war that was brought to my people,” said Damiyal at his residence in Mangun, 5 miles east of the battle site. “A war that was intended to annihilate the Mangun people by the Fulani terrorists. They want to occupy; they want to grab the land and convert it to an Islamic empire,” he said.
The Fulani, a large ethnic group in West Africa, claims more than 10 million members in Nigeria. Within its ranks, there are Islamic extremists responsible for three times the death toll attributed to Boko Haram. This year alone, Fulani militants have jointly killed more than 2500 Christians around Nigeria according to Persecution.org, an international monitoring group. https://www.persecution.org/2023/07/27/islamic-extremist-groups-killed-2500-christians-in-first-half-of-2023/
As of June, Fulani militants have seized more than 1000 Christian villages in recent years, with over 200 of these villages located in Plateau State, according to Christian Today https://www.christiantoday.co.in/news/700-christians-killed-in-nigeria-during-may-ngo-report-claims.html.
The attacks attributed to Fulani militants have been variously explained away by the Nigerian authorities as clashes between sedentary farmers and semi-nomadic cattle herders who identify chiefly as members of the Fulani ethnicity. But newly elected Governor of Plateau State, Caleb Mutfwang has refuted such claims. https://sunnewsonline.com/plateau-attacks-amount-to-genocide-gov-mutfwang/
“What we are seeing is clear genocide,” said Mutfwang in a recent TV interview. “[It is] a deliberate and orchestrated plan to wipe out a number of people,” Mutfwang said.
“A situation where people are sleeping in their homes and they are attacked cannot be said to be farmers/herders clash,” he noted.
Competing View of Nigerian Military
During the firefight scores of terrorists were killed, killed according to Captain James Oya, the spokesman for the Nigerian military in Plateau State. https://www.vanguardngr.com/2023/07/troops-foil-attack-rescue-kidnap-victims-neutralize-suspected-bandits-in-plateau/amp/
“Troops thwarted an attempted attack on Mangun and Patlong villages in Mangu LGA,” wrote Oya in a statement he shared with Truth Nigeria. “Troops decisively responded and scores of the bandits were neutralized while others escaped with gunshot wounds,” Oya wrote.
No less than 15 terrorists were killed in the firefight according to vigilante sources interviewed by Truth Nigeria. Both the military and vigilantes took credit for rebuffing the terrorists. However, a military officer in Mangu told TruthNigeria that troops faced challenges in responding to the attack because of lack of cooperation from the vigilantes.
“The terrain and the people were both a challenge,” the source said. “We came with our professional formation with ten soldiers on two armored personnel carriers but when you tell them [vigilantes] to move in this direction, they will not. When you tell them to go down, they will not. That made it difficult for us to differentiate between the attackers and vigilantes,” the officer said.
“We had to just keep shooting in the rocks just to scare the attackers, and indeed they realized at that point that soldiers were around, and they retreated, shooting on their way out,” the source added.
Villagers in fear
The clashes have once again raised controversy regarding an order by Gen. Lagbaja on 22 July requiring that all men in the Christian-majority area should surrender their weapons to the military or face being shot on sight. Nigeria has strict gun control laws that do not allow civilians to own firearms unless they are licensed hunters of small game.
Judd Saul, the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Equipping the Persecuted, a U.S.-based nonprofit in the State of Iowa has questioned the military’s inability to carry out a raid of a renowned terrorists staging ground for attacks in Plateau State.
“Everyone in the region knows that a majority of these terror attacks are staged out of the town of Mahanga in Plateau State,” wrote Saul in a text message to Truth Nigeria. “I believe the Christians in Nigeria want to be reassured that their government is going to take care of them,” Saul wrote. “I pray that the president [Bola Tinubu] takes the security of his citizens seriously and that makes it a number one priority,” he wrote.
Masara Kim is an awarding winning conflict reporter based in Jos and serves as senior editor of TruthNigeria.com
