By Masara Kim
(Jos) Radical Islamist terrorists have continued their territorial expansions along the Plateau-Nasarawa border, occupying critical public and religious infrastructure, in what church leaders describe as a devastating threat to the Christian faith in Nigeria’s middle belt region.
The affected area is located approximately 50-60 miles south of Jos, the capital of Plateau State. The attack zone has been occupied for a century by the majority-Christian Mushere tribe but has suffered violent incursions by Fulani Ethnic Militia for six months. It is chiefly a corn-farming region in the Bokkos Local Government Area [equivalent of a county], characterized by low hills that enable terrorists to sneak into the state through the densely forested Nasarawa border. The group of 30 villages named after the dominant [Mushere] tribe has recently witnessed relentless attacks by terrorists who have displaced more than 25,000 residents and seized nearly 20 villages, according to locals.
In one of the occupied villages, the terrorists have converted a church, a secondary [high] school, and a government clinic into according to His Royal Highness Jonah Dyorshak, a District Head (Mayor) in Mushere.
“If you go to Hokk now, they are staying in the COCIN [Church belonging to the Church of Christ in Nations] Church there,” Dyorshak said. “They are also occupying a government secondary school and primary health care [clinic] in the town,” he said.
“They have sacked and seized control of the villages of Hokk, Pankap, Kadim Kassa, Fokoldep, Njinak, Nawula, Dulu, Diw, Njemut, Kaban, and Nina, said Dyorshak who is the district head of Horop. Dyorshak added that six other villages are under siege.
In a brazen show of power, the terrorists burned palaces of junior kings [traditional leaders] under Dyorshak, dimming the hope of residents to return to their homes.
“All the palaces of my village heads in Hokk, Njemut, Kadim Kassa, Kadim Bisa, and Lwapan have been burned down,” said Dyorshak, noting the groups responsible for the attacks identify as Fulani members who sneak into the state through the porous border with Nasarawa State.
The Fulani are a group of more than 20 million members spread across West and Central Africa, where they are cited as instigators of the earliest Jihadist wars in the region. In Nigeria, the 10-million-member are high achievers in politics where they wield significant influence. Yet, a radicalized Islamist faction of the group has been credited with six times more Christian deaths than Boko Haram in recent years. This year alone, various monitoring groups have estimated that between 3,500 to 7,200 Christians have been killed by Fulani terrorists across Nigeria. The highest death tolls were recorded in Plateau and Benue States, with TruthNigeria documenting more than 95 attacks in Plateau State alone, including a brutal slaughter of more than 120 Christians in the days leading up to Palm Sunday.
“This is devastating to the Church,” according to Rev. Godfrey Elisha, the Secretary-General of the Fellowship of Churches of Christ in Nigeria (Tarayar Ekilisiyar Kiristi A Najeriya, TEKAN).
“This reminds me of the story of Turkey and other places that Islam has taken over,” Elisha told TruthNigeria by telephone. “It is gradually taking place… If you observe you’d see that this is what is happening across Christian-dominated states such as Plateau State. It has happened in Benue, it has happened in Taraba, and it is still going on in Plateau state. This is gradually getting to the same situation like it has happened in Turkey and other places that used to be Christian countries. It is most devastating to the church,” the minister cried out.
In one of the latest instances, on October 28, security forces from the agro-rangers unit of the Nigerian Civil Defense Corps, a paramilitary agency tasked with the protection of public assets, narrowly saved a family from being killed by Fulani militants who attacked them with machetes in their farm south of Jos. A member of the security team told TruthNigeria on background the incident occurred in a village called Tangur, located in the Bokkos county shortly after 12 noon.
“If not for our patrol and intervention, the woman with her children would have been killed by the Fulani,” he wrote in a text message. The previous day, a young man returning from his farm just three miles away was not so lucky. After spending months struggling to provide for his starving family in an IDP camp from his motorcycle taxi business, the previous terror survivor took the risk of visiting his farm to collect some corn from his farm but never came back, Mayor Dyorshak told TruthNigeria. He was ambushed and killed just as he made his way out of the region around 3 pm local time, becoming the latest victim of the ongoing assaults in Mushere.
On the same exact day and hour, the previous week on October 22, five Christians were killed in a nearby village, Kopmur. The victims also had been previously displaced and had gone to harvest the remnants of their farm crops to feed their starving families in camps according to Dyorshak.
“I express deep sorrow and strong condemnation over the renewed attack that occurred on Tuesday, 22nd October 2025, in Kopmur community of Mushere District, Bokkos Local Government Area,” wrote the congressman representing Bokkos at the Nigerian House of Reps, Ishaya David Lalu in a press statement. “This incident is [both] heartbreaking and unacceptable,” wrote Lalu.
A day after his lamentations and calls to action on October 24, two women were hacked to death with machetes along the border between Bokkos and Barkin Ladi while traveling on a motorcycle to a condolence visit in a previously attacked village. One of the victims buried her son just two years prior, killed by terrorists who attacked multiple villages in the region on Christmas eve in 2023, killing over 200 Christians including her son, TruthNigeria learned.
Masara Kim is a senior editor for TruthNigeria.
