Plateau Community of Ganawuri in Atten Chiefdom was set in a state of mourning by an armed invasion raided by suspected Fulani militia on Friday, 3rdMarch, 2023 at about 11:30pm. According to anonymous eyewitnesses, the recent tragedy was visited on Pastor Musa Hyok Mang, 64 whose residence was invaded which resulted to his dead alongside his 2 grown up sons aged 30 and 26.
The incident is said to have occurred at Liulium village of Ganawuri in Riyom LGA of Plateau following a scuffling and commotion that ensued from Market-sqare over an arrest of a Fulani who is suspected to be a motorcycle snatcher.
On visit to the Church leadership in Ganawuri, a respondent narrates that,
“I heard rapid gunshots around 11:30pm while keeping watch in front of my house,” said Rev. Buzang Wan Deme, a senior pastor under whom late Pastor Mang served. He added that “I quickly woke my family up and we all stood outside, watching as people fled from the affected community. But I did not know my fellow Pastor was killed unti aboutl 2:00am the following day,” he said.
According to another source that pleads anonymity, “we believe the assailants were members of the Fulani militias because,there was a security Intel to the effect that Fulani militia will be raiding Ganawuri axis which plan has been executed,” as rumoured.
Information available reveals that prior to the gruesome murder of Rev. Mang and his sons, there was tensions in and around Ganawuri general area following a market fight between two Fulani gangs on 1st March, leading to multiple casualties from both sides according to Rev. Andrew Moriah, one of the church leaders working with the Church of Christ in Nations-COCIN in the ares.
he fight in the center of Ganawuri town in the afternoon of the local market day followed after a member of one gang allegedly stole a motorcycle belonging to a member of the other gang, Rev. Moriah told ECCVN’s team,
“everyone around ran for his or her safety before the securities intervened but soon we heard the Fulani were planning to attack us,” he added.
A senior official in Plateau State and brother to the slain Pastor Mang, Mr. Sunday Hyat said the Pastor of the COCIN Church in Lulying might have been targeted.
“If there was a market fight and the Christian natives were even to blame, how come they passed several other houses to attack him and his children? They knew he was a Pastor and they wanted to make a statement,” said Hyat, the Plateau State Head of Civil Service, speaking to a group of Pastors in Ganawuri on 4 March.
In another related development, Folloh village in the Bokkos LGA of Plateau State had recently witnessed similar fate with its locals who were struggling to start up life again after a season of same hostility visited on them last November..
Witnesses narrate that the attackers surrounded a mining site at 11:00pm and opened sporadic gunfire at the locals, killing 4 and swiftly vanished into the nearby bushes.
ECCVN has keenly observed that the recent attacks on natives of Plateau appear to be a carryover of orchestrated plans in spite of the just concluded Presidential and National Assemblies Elections and declaration of winners which ought to have sub-peddled any form of aggression.
In view of the aforementioned incidents, ECCVN hereby implore security agents to rise up the the occasion of sustaining its bief-up operation. In the same vein, everyone, especially volatile areas are to be security conscious of their environment and immediately report to the security and other relevant authority any suspicious movement as well as local intelligence gathered to enable forestalling further breakdown of law and order.
It’s also imperative on the path of security agents, in collaboration with locals intelligence sources, to explore all available avenues to trailing the perpetrators of the dastardly acts so that justice would seem to have been done.
By:
Dalyop Solomon Mwantiri, Esq.
Emancipation Centre for Crisis Victims in Nigeria-ECCVN
