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Why truth, not narratives, will end the killings in Plateau’s endless cycle of bloodshed

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2 months ago

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Why truth, not narratives, will end the killings in Plateau’s endless cycle of bloodshed

By Zagazola Makama

In Plateau State, the sound of gunfire is no longer shocking. It is expected. What follows each incident has also become predictable outrage, media attention, blames and accusations, as well as a rush to frame the tragedy within familiar narratives.

The latest reports of miners lynched by unknown gunmen have once again drawn national and international attention. Youth leaders, clerics, and advocacy groups are already describing the incident in sweeping terms, some branding it as genocide.

But beneath the headlines lies a more complicated and more troubling reality. Plateau is not witnessing isolated acts of violence. It is caught in a deeply entrenched cycle of reprisals, where attacks and counter-attacks have become the norm, and where truth is often buried beneath sentiment and selective narratives.

In the early hours of April 3, troops responded to a distress call from Sabongida village in Jos South Local Government Area. What they found was grim: the lifeless, beheaded body of a 30-year-old herder, identified as Shafiyu, lying in the bush. Security sources indicated that the killing was allegedly carried out by suspected Berom youths. Before the shock of that incident could settle, retaliation came swiftly.

Later that same day, armed men attacked an illegal mining site in Gyel village, Riyom Local Government Area. Three miners, including Samuel Davou, were killed in cold blood, while others fled for safety as troops moved in to secure the area. What might appear as separate incidents are, in reality, part of a continuous chain of violence, one feeding directly into the other.

Across Plateau, recent events reveal a troubling pattern that has defined the conflict for years.
On March 25, the body of Abdullahi Mohammed , a Fulani boy, was discovered in a shallow grave in Mangu Local Government Area, raising suspicions of targeted killing. On the same day in Riyom, irrigation farms belonging to several farmers were destroyed, by Fulani herdsmen, an act capable of provoking immediate retaliation.

Three days later, on March 28, gunmen assassinated Alhaji Bilyaminu Julde, a prominent Fulani community leader and Ardo of Gindiri, in Barkin Ladi. The attack, carried out at his residence, sent ignited tensions through the Fulani community and set off alarm bells across the state.

That same day, another flashpoint emerged in Riyom, where stray cattle destroyed farmlands in Tahoss village an incident that further strained relations between farmers and herders.
By April 2, violence had escalated again. In Bokkos Local Government Area, troops foiled an attack by suspected armed herders following a clash with vigilantes over grazing disputes. One vigilante sustained gunshot injuries.

Then came April 3, a day that encapsulated the crisis. Aside from the killing of the herder in Sabongida and the retaliatory attack on miners in Gyel, more killing were reported in Jos South.
On the same day, troops in Barkin Ladi recovered suspected rustled cattle reportedly taken by the Birom armed militia, while in Riyom, another Fulani youth was allegedly killed in an isolated attack. Each of these incidents is not just an entry in a security log. They are links in a chain, each one strengthening the justification for the next.

The Plateau conflict has increasingly been framed through singular lenses, often ethnic or religious. While these dimensions exist, they do not fully capture the complexity of what is happening on the ground. What emerges from security reports and field accounts is a cycle of reciprocal violence involving armed elements across communities. Fulani herders have been attacked and killed. Berom farmers and miners have also been targeted in deadly reprisals.
Yet, public discourse often pointing fongers only one side of the suffering.

This selective framing creates a dangerous distortion. It fuels anger, deepens divisions, and makes reconciliation even more difficult. More importantly, it prevents a clear understanding of the crisis one that is essential for any meaningful solution.

As observed by Simon Kolawole, the conflict has become a cycle of “attacks and counter-attacks, reprisals and counter-reprisals.”
In such an environment, violence becomes normalized. Communities begin to see retaliation not as a crime, but as justice.
Without accountability, peace remains elusive,”he said in his latest article, titled The Killing fields in plateau State.

In Plateau State, the search for peace has become a long, uncertain journey with no immediate destination in sight. Despite sustained military deployments and repeated calls for calm, deadly attacks continue to rage across communities, reinforcing a grim reality: this is a conflict deeply rooted in cycles of violence, mistrust, and silence.

For many residents, the first instinct after every attack is to look toward the government, Security forces and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Questions are asked why were the troops not there? Why was the intelligence not acted upon? Why are communities left exposed?

These concerns are valid. The primary responsibility of any government is the protection of lives and property. Yet, beneath these criticisms lies a difficult truth that is often left unspoken. In many cases, the same communities that demand protection are unwilling to confront the problem from within.

Across flashpoints in Riyom, Barkin Ladi, Bokkos, and Mangu, patterns have consistent which suggest that perpetrators of violence are not faceless outsiders operating in isolation. They are often known by name, by face, by affiliation. But they are rarely exposed. Instead, a culture of silence prevails. Fear, loyalty, and sometimes complicity prevent communities from identifying or handing over those responsible for attacks.

This silence creates a protective shield around perpetrators, allowing them to strike repeatedly without consequences. The result is a dangerous cycle: attacks occur, blame is assigned externally, and the real actors remain embedded within the communities.

There have been instances where youth leaders publicly blamed Fulani groups for atrocities even in cases where the victims themselves were Fulani. Such claims stretch logic and risk undermining credibility. The argument that a group would attack itself, rustle or poison its own livestock, and transport it into rival territory solely to assign blame raises fundamental questions.

While misinformation is a powerful tool in conflict, it cannot fully explain away patterns that are repeatedly documented by security agencies. These narratives, rather than promoting justice, deepen mistrust and inflame passions, making reconciliation more difficult.

This cycle has blurred the lines between victim and aggressor. Communities that mourn their dead today may be accused of launching attacks tomorrow. In such an environment, truth becomes contested, and justice becomes subjective. A herder is killed, reprisal follows.
Miners are attacked, revenge is planned.
Cattle are rustled, retaliation is inevitable. Each incident becomes both consequence and justification.

Intelligence gathering, the backbone of effective security operations depends heavily on local input. When communities withhold information, protect suspects, or distort facts, security agencies are left to operate in the dark.
This creates gaps that perpetrators exploit.
Blaming the government alone, without acknowledging this dynamic, presents an incomplete picture of the crisis.

Security forces have remained active, responding to distress calls, conducting patrols, and attempting to stabilize volatile areas. Yet, their presence has not been enough to stop the killings. The reality is that no amount of military deployment can fully secure a population that is unwilling to cooperate.

One of the most dangerous drivers of the conflict is impunity. For decades, perpetrators of violence in Plateau have rarely been brought to justice. Killings are recorded, condemned, and eventually forgotten until the next incident occurs.

Community, religious and youths leaders, who should serve as stabilizing forces, are increasingly unable to control armed youth groups. Such interventions are rare and often overshadowed by more powerful forces of anger and revenge. In many cases the leaders are the once directly fueling the crises and encouraging the youths to take up arms to carry out reprisals attacks.

The nature of the Plateau conflict makes it resistant to purely military solutions. This is not a conventional war with clear battle lines. It is a fragmented conflict driven by local grievances, economic competition, and historical mistrust.
Calls for heavy-handed interventions, including suggestions of foreign military involvement, fail to recognize this reality. Force alone cannot resolve a conflict that is rooted in social and communal dynamics.

If Plateau is to break free from this cycle, the first step must be honesty. The violence must be acknowledged for what it is a series of interconnected attacks involving multiple actors, not a one-sided campaign. Only then can meaningful solutions emerge.

This is not just a story of victims and aggressors. It is a story of a society caught in a loop of vengeance, where yesterday’s victim can become today’s perpetrator. Until the truth is confronted in its entirety without bias, without omission peace will remain elusive.

The government must move beyond reactive security measures and take decisive steps to address the root causes of the conflict. This includes ensuring accountability, strengthening intelligence capabilities, and facilitating genuine dialogue among communities.Equally important is the role of local leaders. They must rise above partisan interests and work actively to restrain their followers, promote peace, and reject all forms of violence regardless of who commits them.

Zagazola Makama is a Counter Insurgency Expert and Security Analyst in the Lake Chad Region

Why truth, not narratives, will end the killings in Plateau’s endless cycle of bloodshed

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Parliamentarians in Sierra Leone mourn colleague Lucinda Kelly

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6 hours ago

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June 15, 2026

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Parliamentarians in Sierra Leone mourn colleague Lucinda Kelly

By: Bodunrin Kayode

Following the distressing announcement of the sudden death of Lucinda Kelly, representing Kono District, of Sierra Leone proceedings in the Parliament empathically came to a halt last week and was adjourned to this week in memory of the late politician.

During their last sitting, opposition leader Abdul Kargbo moved a motion, seconded by Deputy Opposition Leader Aaron Koroma, that all businesses on the Order Paper be suspended for the House be adjourned thereby allowing members to pay a condolence visit to the family of the bereaved.

“The remains of our colleague are currently at the mortuary, and I do not believe we can continue with the Sittings,” Kargbo said solemnly.

Acting Leader of Government Business, Bashiru Silikie joined the Opposition in extending condolences and requested that Acting Speaker Ibrahim Conteh adjourn Sittings to allow Members to mourn the late parliamentarian Lucinda Kelly.

Silikie noted that Kelly would have been present to form a quorum for last week’s Sittings, but death had sadly snatched her away from legislative businesses.

He proposed that the Parliament adjourns until tomorrow Tuesday for further deliberations pending announcement of her interment rites.

Acting Speaker Ibrahim Tawa Conteh then called on the House to observe a moment of silence in honour of the late Kelly.

Lucinda Kelly was an All People’s Congress (APC) Opposition Member of Parliament representing Kono District of the Republic of Sierra Leone.

She was a vocal and formidable debater who took her parliamentary responsibilities of representation, lawmaking, and oversight very seriously.

Parliamentarians in Sierra Leone mourn colleague Lucinda Kelly

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Kashim Shettima: Of Betrayal, Power, and Survival.

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23 hours ago

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June 14, 2026

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Kashim Shettima: Of Betrayal, Power, and Survival.

By: Inuwa Bwala.

“March has returned, and with it the Ides. Beware the men who call you brother.”
Julius Caesar was perhaps Rome’s most trusted general. He crossed the Rubicon for Rome, conquered Gaul for Rome, and pardoned enemies for Rome.

Yet it was neither Gaul nor Pompey: his avowed rivals, that killed him. It was Brutus: his friend, and confidant yet his protégé, who was described as “the noblest Roman of them all.”

Julius Caesar did not slump and died because the daggers were too many, rather, bacause he noticed the person he least expected could betray him amongst those stabbing him: Brutus. In utter shock and disbelief, Caesar slumped, but not before he uttered the word,”And you too Brutus?”.

There is no doubt that, Kashim Shettima was Borno’s most tested governor. He walked into boiling areas, when others fled the state. He rebuilt schools bombed by Boko Haram. He chose to stay in Maiduguri when Abuja offered comfort.
As Vice President, he has carried himself as a true statesman abs the face of the Tinubu administration at national and international meets.

He always speaks of “the sanctity of human life” and calked for swifter and total mobilisationagainst terror.
Yet today, whispers from Borno and Abuja suggest the daggers are not in the bush like that of Boko Haram, they are in the hands of his kinsmen, those he hold family meetings and political meetings with.

Those who could read between the line, may be able to tell, when Shettima gave an anecdote at a recent public function, about the visit by his kinsmen to his boss, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, just three months into the life of the administration.

Like Brutus and the conspirators of the Shakespearean fame, who claimed they did not hate Caesar, but loved Rome more, those who visited Tinubu claimed to love Nigeria more and her President, abd not brcause thry hated Shettima.
Brutus in particular played on a so-called republican pride and his fear of tyranny, which he used in convincing himself that betrayal was patriotism. He struck to “save” Rome.

Shettima’s own “Brutuses” use a different script, relying on Shetyima’s perceived ambition and the attendant battle to keep himself in the balance of power as an alibi.
And in the face of contending forces, they recruited people to plsy out the cards, while remaining in the shadows. The charges may appear different with that if Caesar, but the intents are same. And while still smarting from the Muslim-Muslim debacle, Shettima had hradly setyled in office when they began to spread rumours of him, being too Borno, not enough to be a northerner. Too ambitious, fetish, independent minded and growing too popular. One thing they could not take away from him though us the fact that Shettima is intelligent, shrewd and a master schemer, which his boss knows too well.

I had cause to warn of this years ago seeing Shettima’s passive refusal to pick between kinsmen in place of statesmen to work with him.
I could see through the plots to denigrate a fine emergent nationalist by linking him with Boko Haram, painting him as fetish, portraying him as a religious and ethinic checkbox, all in a bud to undo him. The weapon when he was govetnor was insurgency, but the weapon now is political naivity and stereotyping . The tactic includes convincing his Kanuri kinsmen to fight him, so that “when Kanuri fights Kanuri, others will win. But beyond that, even his Kanuri brothers seem to have an axe to grind with him.
The painful truth remains, that, Caesar’s killers were senators in the Capitol, but Shettima’s challengers may be his own kinsmen: some of whom, he nentored snd no one can ever convince him that, they could ever work against him. In both cases, the dagger is dipped in familiarity.
It cuts deeper because the hands holding it, are either those he mentored or once broke bread with him.

Caesar died because he ignored omens. Not even Calpurnia, his wife’s dream could deter him. He ignored the soothsayer, and shunned the Senate’s mood, thinking goodwill was a good sheild and armor.

Shettima’s March 2027 is loaded with omens too, arising from fresh attacks by vested interests, intrigues amongst political players, betrayal by kinsmen, espionage by aides and attachees, dissertion by hitherto close allies, manipulations in the media, ethnic or religious profiling, clandestine meetings that without communiqués, but with lethal intents, contending forces in the party who whisper that 2027 needs a “new pairing.” indeed, the ides are here, because a second term is near, and second terms birth daggers.

As governor, perhaps Shettima survived by moving rather faster than conspiracy. He outrun, those who want to either even scores or shake off his dominace, and those people have remained at daggers drawn with him
How Shettima Survives, will definitely be a refrence point in power struggles in Nigeria.
But unlike Caesar who never learnt, Shettima is a good student of Robert Greens 48 Laws of Power, and must have drawn lessons from the falls of others before him.

To survive, Shettima must learn to trust, but audit the Praetorians. Caesar trusted Brutus with his life. Shettima cannot afford blind trust. The INEC database compromise and probe shows how insider access kills. Shettima must do what he did as governor: forensic audits, no sacred cows. As I earlier said, he must have his own policy, which must not be changed simply because some people want to determine its content.
He must learnt to keep the people, his own trusted people, and must not loose, as Caesar lost Rome due to his belief in his personal prowess and capacity. Shettima still owns Borno’s streets and still conttols the larger and more lethal political forces in the North.

He should be able to name the Brutus, but should not become an Antony, whom at Caesar’s funeral sparked civil unrest. Shettima cannot afford chaos. He should have a machinery on ground that will expose the plot, without burning the Forum. He should expedite action in uniting the North, and rally the support of kinsmen, even as a counterforce, or risks allowing the real enemies to win.

Importantly, he should bear in mind, that, the parabolical March is not the end, the ides pass. For Caesar, it ended at Pompey’s statue, but for Shettima, March can end with a stronger alliance. He must do what he told the nation: “We choose light over shadow, and hope over despair”.
The Verdict of History, had
Brutus dying on his own sword, muttering, “Caesar, now be still.” Betrayal did not save the Republic, rather it buried it.
Shettima’s kinsmen face the same choice. They can strike and wait for the verdict of history, or they can sheathe the dagger and remember: the real enemy still sleeps someehere else.

Twelve years ago, I wrote that Shettima’s ides would test Borno. In 2026, I state without fear of contradiction, that, they will test Nigeria.
Caesar ignored the soothsayer because he was in so much hurry. Shettima, as always, may not be in a hurry, but should he decide to, that hurry may yet save him.

Kashim Shettima: Of Betrayal, Power, and Survival.

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FACT CHECK: No School Attack, No Student Abduction in Kautikari — What Really Happened During the ISWAP Raid

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1 day ago

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June 14, 2026

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FACT CHECK: No School Attack, No Student Abduction in Kautikari — What Really Happened During the ISWAP Raid

By Zagazola Makama

A wave of alarming reports circulating across social media and some online platforms has claimed that Boko Haram insurgents attacked a school and abducted students in Kautikari community of Chibok Local Government Area, Borno State.

The claims, predictably amplified by emotionally charged references to the 2014 Chibok schoolgirls’ abduction, have generated anxiety among Nigerians following developments in the troubled region.

However, a detailed fact-check by Zagazola Makama, based on assessment from field sources, and video evidence from the scene, has found the claims to be entirely FALSE.

According to sources, the incident occurred at about 7:30 p.m. on June 13 when ISWAP terrorists launched an attack on a hunters’ patrol base located within the premises of a disused primary school in Kautikari.

The facility being used by the hunters was not functioning as a school at the time of the attack, nor were students present at the location. Rather, local hunters had established a patrol outpost within the structure, using some of the classrooms as temporary accommodation and operational shelters while supporting troops of Operation HADIN KAI’s efforts in the area.

The terrorists specifically targeted the hunters’ base and not a school populated by students as widely claimed. Initial resistance by the hunters successfully repelled the first assault.

However, the terrorists later regrouped in larger numbers and launched a second attack, forcing the hunters to temporarily withdraw after running low on ammunition.

Military sources disclosed that reinforcement teams comprising troops of the 117 Task Force Battalion from Kwada, supported by a Quick Response Force, local hunters and vigilante personnel, rapidly mobilized to the scene and engaged the terrorists. The coordinated response eventually overwhelmed the attackers and forced them to retreat.

No Student Was Abducted

Contrary to viral claims, there is no evidence that any student was abducted during the attack. Operational reports from the scene recorded no missing students, no reports of schoolchildren being taken away, and no indication that the terrorists targeted an educational institution in session.

Security sources confirmed that accountability checks conducted after the attack found no cases of student abduction.

In fact, the only confirmed casualties were one civilian who was reportedly struck by a stray bullet fired by the terrorists and one member of the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) who sustained a gunshot wound to the arm.

Sources said also that the terrorists set fire to clothing and personal belongings belonging to the hunters stationed at the outpost. No troops were killed or injured during the engagement.

Further undermining the false reports is video footage obtained by Zagazola Makama from the aftermath of the attack. In the footage, one of the affected hunters is seen showing the damaged facility and burnt belongings while lamenting the destruction caused by the terrorists.

The hunter can be heard explaining that the location served as their place of accommodation and operational base.

“This is where we sleep,” he says while pointing to the affected section of the building.

The footage clearly supports military accounts that the target was a hunters’ outpost and not an occupied school hosting students.

The confusion likely arose because the hunters’ base was situated within the premises of a primary school building.

Photographs and videos showing damaged classrooms were subsequently circulated online without context, leading some platforms to incorrectly conclude that a school had been attacked and students abducted.

The result was the rapid spread of misinformation that failed basic verification standards.

Given Chibok’s painful history, any report involving schools and abductions naturally attracts national and international attention. This makes accurate reporting even more important.

FACT CHECK: No School Attack, No Student Abduction in Kautikari — What Really Happened During the ISWAP Raid

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