Stick-wielding Youth Repel Fulani militia, who return to Gun Down 9 Locals
By Mike Odeh James and Izhi Bitrus Adamu
(Kaduna) By the end of the afternoon last Tuesday in Anchau village, the local boys taunted invading jihadists like Hebrew warriors who followed the Biblical hero Gideon, chasing away AK 47 assault rifles with just wooden sticks and machetes. But no: a day later the tools of genocide answered.
Hundreds of young adult men and teenage boys drove armed Fulani bandits into the bush in Anchau community, Kubau county of northern Kaduna, on Tuesday afternoon, June 16, 2026, TruthNigeria learned.
A day after the resisted raid on Anchau, the Fulani Ethnic Militia (FEM) struck Unguwan Magaji in the Kamaru ward of Kauru county, in the southern senatorial district, killing nine Christians of the Irigwe tribe.
The attack left at least eleven others injured and sent dozens of families fleeing into surrounding hills, residents told TruthNigeria. The Irigwe, a predominantly Christian ethnic group whose homeland straddles the Kaduna and Plateau boundary, have absorbed wave after wave of such raids over the last ten years, with farmers cut down in their fields and entire hamlets emptied between planting seasons.
Speaking to TruthNigeria, Comrade Daniel Sunday Dodo, a leader of the Kikoba/ Kizakro Joint Task Force community group, said voluntary self-help had begun to blunt the raiders. “Voluntary community efforts have helped to resist Fulani operations partially,” he said. He lamented that the killing of Irigwe men by Fulani Terrorists stretched from Kaduna into neighboring Plateau State.
“We just buried Mr. Emmanuel Agara in Nzharuvo community today. He was gunned down by Fulani Ethnic Militia (FEM) on Monday, June 15, at about 10:00 p.m local time while on a self-Night-Watch behind his house,” Dodo added.
Reverend Caleb Ma’aji, chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria’s Kaduna chapter, confirmed the Anchau episode in a recent phone interview with TruthNigeria.
“When I heard the story, I put a call through. I was told that 10 gunmen on motorcycles were spotted by locals approaching the residential area. The villagers threw stones from the left, right, and center. The bandits escaped, but I learned that a few were injured,” he said.
According to Ma’aji, “Tuesday is the Anchau commercial pick period where surrounding villagers usually converge for legitimate businesses and social life weekly.”
For more than a decade, the region has endured Fulani abductions for ransom and the forced conversion of Christian women taken captive, TruthNigeria learned.
The Viral Video
An 18-minute clip has spread quickly across social media in recent days. It shows a large crowd of youths clutching sticks surging across an open field. They charge in one direction as gunshots crack overhead and voices ring out in Hausa: “Karya ne!!!” — “It’s a lie!!!”
The same gunfire that once spelled panic, ruin and death had become a rallying cry through which the community beat back the raiders. For residents who shared the footage, the images carried a message beyond that single afternoon: that numbers, nerve and early warning could turn back gunmen who had long operated with impunity. Several youths in the crowd could be heard urging one another forward, refusing to scatter even as shots were fired.
Self-Defense Mechanism
The Anchau stand came as voices across the north pressed for “self-defense mechanisms.”
On Sunday, June 14, 2026, Mr. Abdullahi Abdullahi, who described himself as leader of the Hausa community in Nigeria and a warlord against Fulani banditry in Hausaland, called on residents to arm themselves. A portion of his remarks, delivered in Hausa, translates as:
“…I doubt the Nigerian authorities will save us. Therefore, acquire guns to defend yourselves, if the military couldn’t rescue generals in the hands of bandits, they’ll not help us….”
Abdullahi appealed for motorcycles to mount an offensive against Fulani bandits in Hausaland beginning Wednesday, July 1, 2026.
Heightened Call for Self-Defense
The Middle Belt Forum (MBF), through its spokesman, Luka Binniyat, called for a local security arrangement within the law that would safeguard lives and property across the region, urging Nigerians to defend themselves.
Likewise, the Arewa Broadcast Media Practitioners Forum (ABMPF) has urged the federal government to declare a state of emergency on security in the north, with a clearly defined tactical and strategic plan and a firm timeline.
From the Bush Paths to Westminster and Washington
The bloodshed in the Middle Belt now gets debated in London and Washington, D.C. In the British House of Lords, Lord Alton of Liverpool — long regarded as Parliament’s foremost campaigner on religious persecution – has repeatedly pressed His Majesty’s Government through written parliamentary questions over the targeting of Nigerian Christians, demanding that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office confront the scale of the killings and hold perpetrators to account. His interventions have drawn on the work of human rights monitors documenting massacres, abductions for ransom and the displacement of Christian communities across the region.
In Washington, the pressure has turned to the threat of force. President Donald Trump directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to prepare the Pentagon for “possible action” to shield Nigerian Christians, with Hegseth declaring that “the Department of War is preparing for action.” The exchange marked the sharpest American signal yet on Nigeria, coming after Washington restored the country to its list of states of particular concern for religious freedom. For the youths of Anchau, however, the immediate calculus remains simpler: until help arrives, vigilance and a willingness to stand their ground may be all that stands between their villages and the next raid. The full account is documented here.
Mike Odeh James and Izhi Bitrus Adamu are conflict reporters for TruthNigeria.
