Intimidation by Rape Aims to Clear Land for Takeover: Leaders
By Masara Kim
(Jos) Plateau State authorities are probing a series of rape attacks targeting women and girls in rural villages, with at least one suspect arrested in connection with the violence. The latest incident involved the gang-rape of three teenage girls 35 miles south of the state capital, Jos.
Officials and town leaders attribute the attacks to Fulani militants seeking to expand their territorial control and intimidate local residents.
The Fulani, a majority-Muslim tribe with an estimated 10 million members in Nigeria, have been linked to escalating violence in recent years. While many Fulani are engaged in peaceful pursuits like trade, politics, and education, militant groups identifying as Fulani have been responsible for a staggering six times more deaths than Boko Haram in recent years according to the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust, an international development charity in the United Kingdom.
Last year alone, Fulani militants jointly killed around 5,000 Nigerian Christians according to Intersociety, an international nonprofit tracking genocide around the world. The figure represents a 39.2 percent drop from 8,222 Christian murders the previous year.
Local residents attribute the decrease in part to TruthNigeria’s timely warnings of imminent attacks, which enabled communities to prepare for self-defense. However, self-defense volunteers, often armed with makeshift weapons, have faced intense gunfire from terrorists wielding assault and sniper rifles.
Many of these volunteers, known locally as “vigilantes,” have lost their lives in the process. TruthNigeria recently reported on the deaths of five vigilantes who fell to terrorist gunfire during a series of attacks that claimed 11 lives 54 miles southeast of Jos.
Governor Caleb Mutfwang on February 9 expressed worry over the escalating situation in Plateau State.
“I want you to know that the security challenges we are facing are deliberate,” said Mutfwang at a Church service attended by TruthNigeria. “They are planned, they are orchestrated,” said the Governor in Jos.
“And the reason why they are [targeting] Plateau is that they know the blessings of God in this land are plenty. But they keep distracting us with [attacks] so that we will continue to live in poverty,” the Governor said.
According to Governor Mutfwang, the attacks have resulted in a horrific toll on women and girls, with more than 300 falling prey to sexual abuse at the hands of terrorists and opportunists exploiting the vulnerability of impoverished survivors.
“Just last month we discovered that parents in Bassa filled forms and signed out 300 children that have been trafficked out of this state. We are tracking them. Parents are selling their children,” Mutfwang said.
The numbers are far higher, according to TruthNigeria reporter Lawrence Zongo. “I think more than 400 children have been trafficked,” wrote Zongo, a native of Bassa. “Poverty is part of the reason. Children who have been trafficked out of Bassa from Rigwe communities are orphans whose parents were killed by Fulani, and children and young girls whose mothers are widows,” wrote Zongo, who runs a nonprofit that supports victims of terror in the area.
The numbers add to a disturbing trend of sex slavery and exploitation targeting women and girls in displaced farming communities. According to Mrs. Anyamus Nuhu Magit, an official with a women’s development association in Plateau State, her organization has recorded more than 100 cases of such incidents recently.
“If we add the numbers all over the state, it will definitely be more than 100,” said Mrs. Magit in an interview in Jos. “Over 70 percent of the farmlands in Plateau State are cultivated by women. But these days we have threats in the farms,” said Magit, the treasurer of Nigerian Women Progressive Development Initiative.
“When women go to farms they are either raped or killed. And so many of the farms have been left fallow,” she said, expressing fears of increased hunger and desperation for vulnerable women in the state.
Mrs. Olivia Dazyam, the Executive Secretary, Gender and Equal Responsibility Rights Commission in Plateau State, confirmed the situation to TruthNigeria.
“Quite a number of these women have gone to the farms and have not come back,” Mrs. Dazyam said. “Many of them have been raped and killed,” Dazyam said, confirming the arrest of a suspect in connection to a recent gang-raping of three teenage girls by terrorists 35 miles southwest of the state capital Jos.
“They were raped mercilessly. Very mercilessly,” said Dazyam. “I spoke with one of the girls who told me four of those Fulani militias raped one girl,” Dazyam said.
The afternoon violence on February 3rd followed after the Christian girls ages 12, 14 and 15 went to gather firewood near their village of Rim, located in the Riyom county. In a statement, a tribal association in Riyom quoted one of the victims as saying the terrorists armed with machetes trapped them in the woods and threatened to kill them.
The statement reads in part: “According to [the victim], “we went to fetch firewood at Rafin Acha axis of Jol Community at about 3:00 pm of yesterday, 3rd February, 2025. After fetching the firewood, we were about taking off home, but the Fulani came and surrounded us with cutlasses and sticks. We started screaming for help, but they threatened to hack us to death.”
The statement signed by Dalyop Solomon, the President of the Berom Youth Molders Association, explained that the terrorists fled upon sighting vigilantes who were alerted to the ongoing violence.
“The Berom Youths Moulder-Association is saddened by the defilement of the teenage girls, as Fulani militants have continued to sexually abuse women and minors in Berom land with little or no decisive action ever taken to ensure justice for the victims,” according to the statement says. It calls for thorough investigations and prosecution of suspects.
Since 2001, approximately 136 villages in Plateau State have been overrun by suspected Fulani terrorists, according to Rev. Mark Lipdo, head of the Stefanos Foundation in Jos.
Masara Kim is a conflict reporter in Jos and a senior editor at TruthNigeria.
