Farmers Must Pay ‘Jizya’ Tax on Pain of Death
By Masara Kim
An unknown jihadist faction has taken control in Nigeria’s Plateau State, imposing harsh levies on residents and punishing those who don’t comply, TruthNigeria has learned. Poor farmers, living on less than $20 a month, are being forced to pay hundreds of dollars to avoid attacks by the terrorists, TruthNigeria has learned.
Police and army authorities are not responding to queries from TruthNigeria. Experts describe the extortions as a poll tax historically levied on non-Muslims residing in Muslim-ruled territories.
“Muslim Terrorists are making Christian farmers [in Nigeria] pay “Jizya” which is a forced tax on non-Muslims who live in the community that they take over,” wrote Judd Saul, an Iowa-based evangelical missionary and political activist.
“If Christians don’t pay these fees, the Muslim terrorists go in and kill entire Villages and destroy all their crops,” wrote Saul who has spent the last one decade helping victims of Islamic persecution in Nigeria.
Two decades of ongoing violence
On May 8, 2025, three people were killed in the south of Jos, an area sieged by terrorists seeking to grab land and impose a caliphate in Africa’s most populous country, according to local officials.
The evening attack in Gyambwas, a farm village 20 miles from the Plateau State capital is the latest in the area that has endured months of harassment by the terrorists, including a brutal Palm Sunday attack that killed over 55 people in April.
Governor Caleb Mutfwang recently emphasized that the attacks in Plateau State are genocidal, aimed at ethnic displacements and territorial control.
“The displacement of our people has lasted over two decades,” he said. “When I publicly said some communities had been taken over, I was vilified. But today, your report vindicates that assertion,” Mutfwang said on May 6, at the Plateau State Government House in Jos, while receiving the report of a special committee set up by the government to investigate allegations of land grabbing by terrorists in the State.
“At Their Mercy”
Details of the committee’s investigations were not disclosed. But town leaders allege land seizures have jumped more than 200 percent in the past six years, numbering more than 150 in 2024.
TruthNigeria investigations reveal that while seized communities remain no-go zones for the majority Christian landowners, terrorists extort residents in the remaining areas, imposing harsh levies and kidnapping for ransom.
“In the daytime you would see them moving around, interacting and doing business like normal civilians, but all they do is identify potential victims,” said Mr. Samuel Amalau, the Chairman of Bokkos county (Local Government Area) to TruthNigeria.
“And when they come for you, you are at their mercy because they would have already researched a lot about you,” said Amalau, noting the terrorists often identify as members of the Fulani ethnicity.
About Fulani
The Fulani, a majority Muslim group has more than 20 million members across West and central Africa, and around 10 million in Nigeria. Among them are successful businessmen and politicians, including former Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.
But its ranks include armed outlaws belonging to an unknown jihadist faction responsible for six times more Christian deaths than Boko Haram according to monitoring groups.
Last year alone, Fulani terrorists killed more than 5,000 Christians across Nigeria, reports Intersociety, an international nonprofit monitoring genocide around the world.
Plateau State has seen the highest death tolls, alongside Benue State. The two have seen an escalation of the violence with more than 120 people killed in the past one month alone.
Punished For Resisting Land Grabbing
The latest attack on May 8 followed the murder of six people in separate incidents on May 3rd and 4th. Local leaders claim the attacks 35-40 miles south of Jos were intended to punish residents who resisted the terrorists.
“It is our firm belief that the renewal of Fulani militant attacks on residents of Plateau State and beyond is, among other reasons, to scare away all affected and potential victims of terror who may oppose land grabbing [or] expansionist agenda of the militants,” wrote Solomon Dalyop, a barrister and leader of the Berom ethnicity, the dominate group in the area.
TruthNigeria learned the attack of May 4, which claimed three people in the village of Kakuruk, in the Gashish district of Barkin Ladi county, targeted a local farmer who refused to give up his land to the terrorists.
“They built a house on his farm and wanted him to vacate the land,” said a town leader in Kakuruk to TruthNigeria. “He went to court and obtained a restraining order, and they came for him a few days later,” said the source who does not want to be named for fear of retribution.
A Desperate Moment
Across the area, 35-60 miles south of Jos, thousands of farmers are abandoning their farms and fleeing to safer areas, TruthNigeria learned. In Bokkos county, known as Nigeria’s potato capital, farmers are forced to surrender their lands and pay brutal levies just to be spared.
Mr. Banghas Atunguk, an unemployed college graduate who lives with his family in Hurti, was recently threatened with death unless he paid a levy of $150.
“They stormed my house with gunshots one evening and dropped a black plastic bag containing a handwritten letter in Hausa language, demanding the sum of N200,000 [equivalent of $150],” Atunguk told TruthNigeria.
“The initial letter addressed to my wife, while I was away on a business trip, threatened to kidnap me if we failed to pay the money within days,” Atunguk said.
“After three days of trying to contact them through the phone number they gave in the letter to negotiate – without success apparently due to poor network coverage in the area – we went to our corn farm one morning and found a large section of it sheared to the ground,” Atunguk recalled.
“Then we found another black plastic bag tied to one of the severed corn stalks containing a second letter, giving us an ultimatum to pay the money within hours or face severe consequences,” Atunguk narrated.
TruthNigeria obtained a copy of the letter written with poor spellings, punctuations and grammar. Experts shown the letter confirmed to TruthNigeria the words in the letter are spelt as pronounced by a Fulani with an accent.
“The spelling of [the number] 8 as ‘tokos’ rather than ‘takwas’ reflects Fulani pronunciation,” wrote a one expert, Mr. Jonathan Akuns who is a former administrator at the Nigerian central bank.
Desperate to save his family, Atunguk borrowed money from friends and family members and complied with the orders of the terrorists after long negotiations through a provider cell number, which saw them reducing the levy to $100.
“In Nigeria, if you have a good job then you can earn up to $100 a month, that’s a good paying job,” said Judd Saul in a recent documentary published by his non-profit Equipping the Persecuted Initiative which highlights the precarious situation in Nigeria. “Now even the small plots they have are being taken away,” said Saul in a podcast produced by former Fox News reporter Lara Logan.
A Critical Decision
Mr. Maren Arandong, the mayor of Hurti, told TruthNigeria several residents like Atunguk have been forced to pay such levies.
“At least two or three people received such letters last year, ordering them to pay certain amounts of money to the terrorists or risk getting kidnapped or even killed,” Arandong said.
“They would usually send the letters with specific instructions on when, where and how to convey the money to them,” Arandong disclosed.
“If they comply, they are safe. If they don’t, they are in danger,” Arandong stated, noting he was recently compelled to take drastic steps to stop the exploitations.
“I summoned a meeting and ordered that no one should pay any such moneys to them anymore and nothing happened,” said Arandong.
According to Arandong, he got fed up with the failure of law enforcement to intervene against the crime gang.
On April 2, swarms of armed terrorists invaded Hurti, killing more than 50 people and burning more than 200 houses, according to Arandong. The motivation for the attack remains unclear. But Arandong revealed the area witnessed rape and sex slavery attacks prior to the invasion on April 2, 2025.
Witnesses told TruthNigeria the terrorists targeted chiefly male residents, with only four women killed during the April 2nd attacks.
Masara Kim is an award-winning conflict reporter in Jos, central Nigeria and the senior Editor of TruthNigeria
