By Masara Kim
(Jos) A Nigerian court on December 30th ordered the release of a Fulani leader held on terrorism charges. But as 2024 draws to a close, Nigerian families continue to grapple with the trauma of losing loved ones to terrorist attacks.
The numbers are staggering: Up to 5,000 Nigerian Christians may have been killed by terrorists since January according to Emmanuel Umeagbalasi, the Chairman and CEO of intersociety, a nonprofit that tracks crimes globally. The latest victims are 25 villagers killed on Christmas Day in Benue State and the days before in Plateau State.
Yet, the figure represents a 37.5 percent decrease from the over-8,000 Christian murders reported by intersociety in 2023.
Around the same Christmas period in 2023, more than 200 Christians were killed in a six-day village-burning south of Jos, the Plateau State capital. The persisting attacks saw as many as 1,336 people killed around the state by February 2024, according to Amnesty International. Benue State, on the other hand, did not witness the “Black Christmas” massacres in 2023. But more than 2,600 people were killed within the “breadbasket” state between January 2023 and February 2024, reports Amnesty International.
Experts credit this unexpected decline to the Nigerian military’s more “coordinated response” under President Bola Tinubu.
The Christmas-period attacks in Benue and Plateau States are the latest of a series within the northcentral region in recent months. Despite assurances by local authorities, dozens of villages have been invaded, and roads have been ambushed, leaving hundreds of innocent lives lost or disrupted.
Notable incidents include a daring daytime attack on a university campus south of Jos, Plateau State’s capital, and the kidnapping of university students traveling to a church event in the south of Benue.
The perpetrators of the attacks across the Middle Belt region identify as members of the Fulani ethnicity. The majority-Muslim group has more than 20 million members across West Africa and is credited with thousands of genocidal massacres and the earliest jihad wars in the region.
Swelling bandit-terrorists cells wracking communities in the northwestern region, as well as Boko Haram and Islamic State of West Africa (ISWAP) terrorists threatening the northeastern region, Fulani militants killed more than 55,000 Christians between 2019 and 2024 according to the Observatory of Religious Freedom in Africa (ORFA).
Last June, a magistrate in Kaduna, Janet Gimba, lay helplessly as she heard her son groan to death amid rumbling gunshots while being held hostage with her three other children. Mrs. Gimba told TruthNigeria she has since found solace in Jesus, but that the trauma of her experience still haunts her.
Two months after her ordeal in the south of Kaduna, Kingsley Aondona, a university Union leader-found himself trapped in a terrorists camp along with 19 colleagues in Benue. The members of the Federation of Catholic Medical and Dental Students (FECAMDS) from the Universities of Jos and Maiduguri were snatched along the Otukpo-Enugu on August 15, while traveling to southeastern Enugu State for a church event.
The kidnap occurred on the third anniversary of Aondona’s narrow escape from Muslim extremists in Jos. At exactly the same time in August 2021, Aondona was attacked by a Muslim mob staging religious riots in Jos. Aondona told TruthNigeria the attack on a Sunday morning on August 15, 2021 near the entrance of the university of Jos left him with broken bones and teeth. However, more than 30 victims of the weeklong riots were not so lucky.
“When it happened the second time on August 15, 2024, I just prepared myself for the worse,” said Aondona who told TruthNigeria he was compelled by the Fulani speaking terrorists who kidnapped them to tweet about their demands for N50million ($32,275) ransom a day after the kidnap.
The students eventually regained their freedom through the joint effort of police and military forces eight days later. However, attacks in the so-called “breadbasket” state continued despite peace agreements by church and county officials seeking to compel Fulani leaders to abide by a ceasefire they agreed to follow. Governor Hyacinth Alia recently set up a government-subsidized community guard to supplement the efforts of the military who locals accuse of arriving late or never at all during village invasions.
In northwestern Katsina state, local citizens fighting with homemade pipe guns and hunting rifles successfully pushed back dozens of invading terrorists, saving thousands during a recent invasion of Bango, a community in the south of the state. TruthNigeria cited the sacrifice of volunteer guard Dantani Magaji, 45, who lost his life but saved more than 30.
But in Plateau State, civilian-volunteer defenders have faced fire from both terrorists and soldiers, with state authorities standing against them.
“Some of our boys will come out on the main road and sit with their guns,” said Gov. Caleb Mutfwang, justifying the shooting and arrest of self-defense volunteers by soldiers mediating in violent confrontations between militia groups according to officials.
“I know that there have been lots of misunderstandings between communities and security agencies,” said Gov. Mutfwang in the wake of a brazen university campus invasion in Bokkos county.
“But let me beg all of you stakeholders, please I beg you, don’t spread hearsay,” said the Governor during a visit to the Plateau state university on May 6.
“When it comes to security, what you have not seen, do not advance,” said Gov. Mutfwang in a meeting with military, police and community leaders.
“I say this with serious responsibility,” said Mutfwang. “I have had to investigate some security personnel when reports came to us,” Mutfwang said. “And we had done our investigations, we found that actually, it’s our own people that were the problem,” said the governor amid allegations soldiers opened fire on protesting students at the same time terrorists invaded the university campus on April 19.
“It is true that there are those who want to destabilize us and make sure that we are evacuated from our land,” the Governor said, referencing his previous claims of an ongoing genocide.
“And they may have support elsewhere, where they are able to move about. But for God’s sake, there is no need to be flexing muscles,” the Governor said.
The attacks in Bokkos have led to the death of more than 100 people in Bokkos in 2024 alone according to community leaders. “The area was the epicenter of the 2023 black Christmas massacre of more than 200 Christians and continues to face threats of impending terror attacks,” wrote tribal lawyer Far Masum Fuddang in a statement.
“Regrettably, no arrests have been made to bring justice to the victims,” wrote Fuddang alleging military complicity with terrorists.
“This disparity highlights the presence of both dedicated and trustworthy security forces, as well as rogue elements that prioritize personal and sectional interests over the law and the safety of innocent civilians,” Fuddang wrote on December 22, calling for intensified self-defense efforts during the 2024 Christmas holiday.
“Personal safety is paramount, even if it means being arrested for taking necessary precautions,” wrote Fuddang, who is the Chairman of Bokkos Cultural Development Council (BCDC) Vanguard.
The Nigerian military, however, have made strides confining a new terror group calling itself Lakurawa (the “recruits”) to small cells within the northwest- and northeast regions. This comes after a widely celebrated battle that killed a notorious gang leader, Halilu Sububu in Zamfara State.
Dr. Chris Kwaja, the Country Director of the United States Institute of Peace acknowledges that the Nigerian authorities have not done enough to protect citizens, but notes the country is making significant progress in the fight against terrorism under President Tinubu.
“We are witnessing the bulging of a criminal economy that is on a daily basis manifesting in a way that shows that government is not doing enough,” Kwaja told TruthNigeria regarding persisting kidnap-for-ransom attacks by terrorists.
“However, there are evidence to show that we’ve witnessed some level of success when it comes to the ability and capacity of the security agencies to really deal with this phenomenon,” Kwaja said.
“The Chief of Defense staff has ensured a more coordinated approach to responding to [terrorism],” said Kwaja, who has previously served in the U.N. Human Rights Council as the African representative to its working group on the use of mercenaries, where he was subsequently elected as the working group’s chairperson-rapporteur.
“We have been advocating for a whole-of-government approach to combating terrorism and insurgency because you cannot fight insurgency and organized crime using kinetic force alone,” Kwaja said, advocating synergy between the military and civilian community members.
“You need the support of communities because local intelligence is very important. Criminal groups rely on communities as hideouts. Local support is very important. It serves as the oxygen for their own survival. Where government is coming full breach on them, they go into those communities to hibernate. And that’s why government needs to win the hearts and minds of communities in order to ensure that communities don’t provide the cover that criminal groups require,” Kwaja said.
Masara Kim is a conflict reporter in Jos and a senior editor at TruthNigeria
