The peak of harmattan is the worst period for anyone to be displaced in Plateau State. But that is the fate that has befallen about 3,000 residents drawn from 77 families in a Plateau community. They are currently sleeping in the cold following an attack on their village by unknown gunmen. YUSUFU AMINU IDEGU writes on the humanitarian challenges created by the attack in which no fewer than 40 residents were murdered.
THE attack on Shonong village in Bachit District, Riyom Local Government Area, Plateau State, on January 9, 2014, which led to the death of about 40 Berom people, shares some similarities with the attack on Dogo Nahawa in July 2010. In both cases, the casualties were mostly defenceless women, children and the aged who could not run fast enough to escape the assassins’ bullets. And like in the Dogo Nahawa attack, Special Task Force (STF) soldiers are being accused of aiding the people who attacked Shonong.
No fewer than 23 people were reckoned to have been roasted to death in a single room during the attack. Even the survivors of the attack have told whoever cared to listen that they “saw hell”. What made the Shonong attack peculiar was the fact that it took place during the day, lasting from about 7 am till about noon in a village where the STF is based.
There were claims that in spite of the presence of STF troops, no fewer than 34 people were killed, 77 residential houses razed, two vehicles burnt and about 3,000 people were rendered homeless to face the cold weather in the state.
It was an attack whose success could not be comprehended by many, considering the presence of soldiers deployed in the state to maintain the peace and save lives. The incident left in its trail a very serious humanitarian crisis in the state, even as many mourn their loved ones who were killed in the attack. Their houses were razed and they are now left to shiver and gnash their teeth in the cold weather of Jos, which has been at its peak since the beginning of the New Year.
There are fears that the displaced persons could suffer pneumonia and other weather-related ailments or die if nothing urgent is done to provide shelter for them in the next few days. Some children below the age of five but whose parents are rendered homeless were seen shivering due to the effect of the cold weather since they were forced to sleep in the church after the attack two weeks ago.
Nursing mothers among the displaced persons heaved a sigh of relief when officials of the Plateau State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) and Riyom Local Government Authority appeared with blankets and mattresses to be shared to them.
But with or without relief materials, most of the survivors have already resolved to quit the village, as they expressed lack of confidence in the soldiers. They believe that many of the soldiers deployed in the area may have teamed up with their tormentors.
One of the victims, Mathew Dadu, said: “These STF men have lived with us for about three years now. They know the terrain and we are already friends with them. We had so much confidence that they were here to protect us until the attack.
“Our frustration and fear in this village are that if these soldiers can fail to defend us and we are being killed like frogs, then the fear is justified. People have no confidence in them any longer, hence they (people) are moving out of the village.”
Gunmen suspected to be Fulani heardsmen allegedly attacked Shonong on January 9, this year, barely a week into the New Year. The villagers must have danced and sung glorious songs in their various churches during the pass-over night in anticipation of the New Year as it is the tradition among the Christian population.
Therefore, the people did not envisage that anything untoward would befall them soon after they successfully crossed into the New Year. But nine days into the New Year; they went to bed and woke up, praising the Almighty for making it possible for them to witness yet another new day. As the daily routine in the village, the men left for their farms, leaving their women and children at home. But while the women were thinking of what to prepare for their children as breakfast, all hell was let loose by gunmen.
Shoma Toma, a survivor of the incident who sustained gunshot injuries and was receiving treatment at the Vom Christian Hospital, said the attackers stormed the village in their hundreds at about 7 am when most of the villagers had gone to farm, killing mostly children, women and the aged.
Toma said: “I escaped narrowly from the attackers because I was at home moulding blocks when they invaded the village. They came from four different directions to invade us. They started shooting at anything they saw. While trying to run, a bullet hit me in the back and I fell down. They rushed after me and I pretended that I was dead. They left me and went after some other residents.
“The gunmen operated for more than five hours, killing our people as I lay down there. As God would have it, they never came back to me to confirm if I was really dead. That was my saving grace. I only got up when my relations came to me and started crying, thinking that I was dead. I got up to show them that I was alive. When I got up they told me that the attackers had left. But I fainted shortly after. I don’t know how I was brought to this hospital.”
One of the community members who went to farm before the attack, Gyang Bala, said: “Maybe we made a mistake by accepting an official of the unit to lead the soldiers here. He was driven from Barkin Ladi LGA. He was also rejected in Jol and Fan. Our mistake was that we allowed him to stay.”
The Majority Leader of the Plateau State House of Assembly and the member representing Riyom Constituency, Hon. Daniel Dem, said in this particular attack, the STF soldiers have questions to answer because they are based in the particular village and the attack ought not to have happened under their noses.
“If the military men were there in the village and the attack took place at about 8 am and lasted till after noon, then the military have so many questions to answer,” he said.
Hon. Dem, who condemned the attack during his visit to survivors who were receiving treatment at Vom Christian Hospital, lamented: “We have security men there. If the attack started around 8 am and lasted till afternoon, I think something must be wrong. What are the military men there for? If we suffered an attack from morning till afternoon and people were killed and houses were burnt, I think the military should be asked why they were sent there to protect the lives and property of the people.”
He added: “We have tried to get in touch with them and they said they were on ground. What then happened from morning till afternoon that more than 30 people were killed and many others are lying in the hospital?”
The Plateau State Chapter of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) expressed disappointment with the performance of the militrary in the face of the killings that are going on in the state. The union noted that in spite of the establishment of a Special Task Force to stop killings in the state since 2010, thousands of people had been killed and more were still being killed under the watchful eyes of the task force, code named ‘Operation Safe Haven’
Rising from a congress meeting held at the state secretariat in Jos penultimate Wednesday, its communique reads: “Members of the Plateau State Council have noted with regret that for the past four years, the state has been engulfed in sectarian violence and has through the years reported the events according to the dictates of our profession.
The communique added: “We have noted that through these years, one commander or the other has been deployed to the state as head of the Special Task Force on internal security.
The task force is made up of the three arms of the military, including the police, Department of State Security and the National Security and Civil Defence Corps. Yet, through the years, ceaseless attacks have been going on in some parts of the state without efforts to curb the trend.
“These attacks take the same pattern in style and sophistry, where members of the same family are wiped out in one fell swoop. These communities have more often than not accused members of the task force of culpability in some of these attacks, which they alleged were sometimes carried out by men in security uniforms.
“Yet, not even one person has been caught and brought to book. We are left with STF’s often rehearsed and quoted sobriquet ‘our own troops repelled the attackers.’ How can these attackers be repelled without any of them being arrested?
“And we have noted the disparity in the number of casualty figures often given by the security agencies in the state with a view to downplaying the severity of the attacks.”
The union resolved thus: “We may be forced to withdraw from reporting the activities of the task force if urgent steps are not taken by the STF to stop the senseless killings and bloodshed in the state. We ask the commander of the task force to investigate all allegations of possible culpability and connivance against his men in some of these killings.
“We implore the Federal Government to, as a matter of urgency, release and implement the reports on Jos crises, especially the Solomon Lar Presidential Committee set up by the present administration.”
The state chapter of the union had in 2012 threatened to boycott the state government’s activities over the unending bloodshed, but Governor Jonah Jang defended himself by stating that the security of lives and property in the state had been taken over by the Federal Ministry of Defence with the establishment of the Special Task Force in 2010.
Narrating how the soldiers allegedly aided the mass killing in the Shonong attack, the community leader of Shonong, Da Yohanna Ciroma Dangyang, said: “While the gunmen began to shoot sporadically to scare our people, the soldiers came and asked them to hide in one room so that they would protect us there. The people obeyed and many people ran into the room for cover, not knowing that it was a ploy to gather residents for the attackers to kill.
“As soon as the attackers approached, the soldiers disappeared and the attackers set the house ablaze and all its occupants of about 23 women and children were burnt to ashes. Even some people who ran to take cover at the primary school hosting the STF were shot dead. The closest compound to the STF base was attacked and five people were killed there while the soldiers were just watching the action.”
He said the soldiers were not there to defend the village but to aid the attackers to achieve their mission. “Our cry to government now is that they should withdraw these soldiers and send us policemen. These soldiers will wipe us out very soon,” he said.
Da Dangyang leveled the allegations earlier in the week when the Plateau State Emergency Relief Agency (SEMA), led by the Sole Administrator of Riyom Local Government, Mr Samdah Ishaya Matawal, came to deliver some relief materials to survivors of the attack.
Presenting the relief materials to the displaced people who sought shelter at COCIN Church, Shonong, Matawal appealed to the people to remain calm as the state government was taking stock of burnt houses with a view to bringing in building materials for their reconstruction.
He said their mission to the place was to present relief materials to the people whose houses and foodstuff were burnt to ashes in the area. He encouraged the people to remain steadfast and not abandon their houses for another place, as the main purpose of the attackers was to take over their land for grazing.
Matawal urged the STF Commander to as a matter of fact deploy more security personnel in Shonong, adding that the few ones on ground were grossly inadequate to curtail the activities of Fulani militias. He added that there should be a synergy among the various security operatives in the area to nip in the bud the incessant Fulani attacks.
The Plateau State Emergency Management Agency presented relief materials worth N2 million to the displaced people, according to Binta Wuyep, the Director, Relief and Rehabilitation unit of the agency.
However, the special task force (STF) preferred to remain silent over all the allegation against it’s men. The only reaction so far since the attack was on the figure of casualties. The STF has not commented on the alleged culpability of it’s men. All efforts to get the spokesman of the STF Captain Salisu Mustapha to comment on these allegation failed as he declined comment.
But families of victims believed as the police step in to find the remote cause of the attack, the level of involvement of the STF troops will be unveil as the end of the police investigation. One thing that is clear is that, the STF will not hesitate to court marshal any of it’s members found to have aided the attackers in the killings in Shonong as they have done in the past.
The spokesman of the STF, Captain Salisu Mustapha, however, declined comments when contacted over the alleged culpability of soldiers in the attack.
However, a source, who pleaded not to be quoted, said the STF would not hesitate to court-marshal any of the soldiers found to have aided the attackers as had been done in the past.
