Victims of armed attacks in Plateau State have thanked First Lady Senator Oluremi Tinubu for contributing up to N500 million to aid in their rehabilitation.
On Sunday, leaders of 7,000 villagers affected by recent violence in Bokkos Local Government Area’s Daffo district praised the gesture as exceptional.
“We are overjoyed with the First Lady’s efforts,” stated Mr. Danlami Asado, Deputy Chairman of the Daffo Mangai Community Development Association. “She did something we have never seen before,” Asado stated in Daffo during a gathering of community members aimed at ensuring that the community’s allotment goes to the correct beneficiaries.
“We pray for good health and open doors for more of such interventions,” Asado told reporters, urging for security personnel to be deployed to allow the displaced villagers to return to their homes.
“Our roads are unsafe, and we can’t get to our homes and farms.” “On her way to town today, a young lady was attacked,” he claimed.
“Just four days ago, two people were killed and three others were injured in this village in another attack.” More security deployments are required to allow us to return to our homes and fields. As I speak to you, thousands of our people have been displaced since 2018 and are unable to return to their homes in Wereng, Hottom, and Mandung. Even to gain access to our farms, we must be escorted by security, or you will not return,” he explained.
A young schoolgirl walking from a neighbouring village to the town was viciously attacked and hurt on the head while the meeting was taking place at lunchtime in the town.
“He first ordered me to stop and said your own has finished today, I must kill you and started to race towards me with a big stick in his hand,” Miss Uhoman Moses said, identifying the attacker as a Fulani herder.
“There was only me and him there, so I started running as he chased me down the road.” He smacked me in the head when he caught up to me, and I collapsed to the ground. He tried to hit me again, but I intercepted it with my palm, and the stick landed far away from him. Miss Moses recalled, “I quickly got up and started screaming and running, and then he ran into the bushes.”
The latest victim of similar attacks in the community, blamed on Fulani herders, was a senior student at the Government Secondary School Daffo.
Last Tuesday, while Senator Tinubu was meeting with Plateau State Governor Caleb Mutfwang at the Government House in Jos, where she presented a draught cheque for N500 million as a donation to victims of previous attacks, two people were killed and three others were injured in an evening attack in Daffo town.
Mr. Mawiyau Emmanuel, whose son was slain in the attack, informed our correspondent that around 7:30 p.m., eight armed Fulani militants opened fire on local people and ambushed him and his son as they went to respond. Emmanuel and his son were both members of a local vigilante group. They were rushing to save one of their colleagues who had been slain in the initial shooting, he said.
“We didn’t know they had taken over the roads until they opened fire on us, killing my son and injuring me on the neck and hand,” he explained.
Mafwalal Abafaras, leader of the local vigilante group, urged the government to equip and motivate volunteers to supplement traditional security measures in protecting villages.