Blood without outrage: inside Qua’an-Pan attack and the silence that shields local perpetrators

By: Zagazola Makama

The killing of at least seven persons in Bong village, Doemak District of Qua’an-Pan Local Government Area of Plateau has again exposed a troubling pattern in the narrative and response to violence in the state: when attacks are not linked to Fulani bandits or framed along ethnic or religious lines, they often slide quietly into obscurity.

At least seven persons were killed and several others injured when gunmen stormed the community on Friday night, while two of the attackers were also reported killed during a pursuit by security forces. Their identities were immediately revealed as plateau local indigenes.

The Plateau State Police Command later confirmed that the incident was linked to a cattle-rustling operation by criminal elements who invaded Bong/Kook village in the early hours of Jan. 2.

According to sources, a joint team of Army troops, police, NSCDC and vigilantes pursued the attackers, who shot and killed seven community members to facilitate their escape before abandoning the rustled cattle.

Crucially, security forces and community accounts indicate that the livestock involved did not belong to Fulani pastoralists, nor were the victims members of Fulani communities.

When the attackers are “from within”, unlike many previous attacks in Plateau that are quickly framed along ethnic or religious fault lines, preliminary accounts indicated that this incident was not carried out by Fulani bandits instead the Genocide was perpetrated by Christians attacking fellow Christians.

This fact, was at the heart of the wider silence surrounding the tragedy. But beyond the tragic loss of lives, the incident raises uncomfortable questions that Plateau State government, opinion leaders and advocacy groups, religious leaders have often avoided. This single fact fundamentally alters the usual narrative, yet it is precisely why the attack risks being quietly buried under the familiar label of “unknown gunmen.”

In the Plateau’s long-running cycle of violence, attacks attributed to Fulani bandits or framed as religiously motivated often trigger swift outrage, high-profile condemnations and emotionally charged narratives. By contrast, incidents such as the Qua’an-Pan killings are routinely reduced to brief police reports describing the assailants simply as “gunmen,” with little sustained attention or follow-up.

Seven lives lost in Bong village are no less valuable than lives lost anywhere else in Plateau. Yet history suggests that this tragedy may not attract mass protests, loud press conferences or emotionally charged rhetoric branding it as “genocide.” There are unlikely to be widely publicised, politicized, internationalized through symbolic mass burials or sustained media campaigns because the victims do not fit into an established narrative of persecution or Christian Genocide.

The killings, therefore, risk becoming just another statistic acknowledged briefly and then forgotten.This selective outrage is dangerous. It sends a signal that some victims deserve global attention while others do not, depending on who is accused of committing the crime.

The police said security operatives pursued the attackers, recovered the rustled cows and intensified deployment in the area. While this response is commendable, Plateau residents have heard similar assurances countless times. When it was the Fulani’s that were attacked, the security agencies will say they recovered rustled livestock and they are intensifying efforts to locate the owner, when in the real sense the owner has been killed. What remains largely absent is accountability.

Too often, attackers vanish into the shadows, investigations drag on, and arrests are never announced. Even when arrest happened, the government and community leaders always come in the defense of the criminals and asked for the immediate release. In most cases, communities are left with grief, fear and a growing sense that justice depends not on the crime committed, but on the identity of those involved.

Reducing every Plateau killing to a single ethnic or religious explanation does not protect communities; it weakens them. It masks criminality, shields perpetrators who operate within communities, and undermines genuine peacebuilding efforts.

Violence in Plateau is complex. Criminal gangs, communal disputes, reprisal or revenge attacks and economic crimes such as cattle rustling all intersect. Ignoring this complexity in favour of emotionally convenient narratives only ensures that killings continue unchecked.

The Bong village attack demands the same level of seriousness, investigation and condemnation as any other mass killing in Plateau State. Lives were lost. Families were shattered. Fear has been reignited. Justice should not depend on whether the attackers are labelled Fulani, Muslim or “unknown gunmen.” Every criminal act must be pursued with equal determination, and every victim must matter.

Blood without outrage: inside Qua’an-Pan attack and the silence that shields local perpetrators